Why Academic Testing Is Outdated
Continual, positive change is something that the go-getters among us actively seek, and the sedentary take for granted. Its need has become a part of the human condition, being philosophized about by many of history’s greatest, as White Goodman would say, philosophizers.
Things do not change; we change. – Henry David Thoreau
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi
He who go to bed with itchy butt, wake up with stinky finger. – Confucious
Though change is necessary, it can sometimes be hard to adjust to. Take motion-sensor toilets, for example, which solved the societal problem of having to flush toilets by means of touching the bacteria-infested lever. Too often these days, however, I’ll be shitting into one of these toilets when, before I even get the chance to stand up, it will flush, violating my b-hole with a frighteningly cold toilet-water enema. All I wanted was a little time to stand up and admire my log before sending it down to goldfish heaven, but instead I have my sphincter pressure washed by doodoo water. Change took away something that I loved, but I’m comforted in knowing that, in the end, change is almost always for the better.
I’m here today to tell you about an area in the U.S. education system that needs drastic changing. That area is testing. No, not STD testing (the current system where I say “ignorance is bliss” and then don’t get tested is working out just fine for me), but academic testing, with its pointless exams, midterms, and finals.
The first reason I believe academic testing is outdated is because of the onset of performance-enhancing drugs. While I have never used prescription drugs such as Adderall and Vyvanse to help improve my studying, it’s common knowledge that their illegal use is widespread on college campuses. The media wants you to think that this is because some lazy ass college kids spend all night partying and then need to cram before their exam the next day. While this is partly true (it’s a TFM), it’s not the main reason why PEDs have made their way into schools. The problem is in academic testing.
If you go back and look at the syllabi for your classes, you’ll see that in many of them finals and midterms account for over 50% of your grade in that class. This means that your grade in each course, your GPA, and consequently your future, are decided by the series of academic tests you take in college. That is terrifying. If you fuck up on just one final, your GPA goes down faster than that Pi Phi girl who I let hold Pickles, our frat iguana. So college students, being the crafty devils that they are, tried to get an edge. They found that edge in ADD medication. We shouldn’t be subjected to a system where students feel the need to put their physical bodies at risk to make sure they can pass a mental test.
Furthermore, the age of technology in which we live has rendered academic testing pointless. Back before the internet, when you couldn’t find anything out about anything within seconds of thinking of anything, knowledge was important. It set people apart. With the onset of technology, however, it’s now less relevant than Ben Savage from Boy Meets World. What the hell has that dude been up to, anyways? If I was him, I’ll tell you what I’d be doing: furiously masturbating to the memories of making out with Topanga. Popped my first boner to her. What a great 15th birthday that was. Anyways, if you ask me a question that I’m not 100% sure about, odds are I’ll either tell you what I think the answer is and then confirm it by looking it up, or just look it up right away without putting any thought into it whatsoever. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. It prevents people from giving wrong answers and saves massive amounts of time.
That’s the major problem with academic testing. It doesn’t measure your knowledge or comprehension of a subject; it measures your memory of the subject. It’s so impractical. If in the real world, when you’re actually using the knowledge, you’d use a computer, why can’t you when you’re being tested on it?
Current academia is an outdated system designed to weed out the poor students in a non-technological world. If it doesn’t adapt to the times, qualified individuals who are incredibly proficient at what they do, but need technology to do it, will be looked over even when they’re far more suited for the job. We’re getting to the point where college students are those kids who have only ever known a technological world. Colleges need to realize this and do something soon. If they don’t, they’re just being ignorant. Academic testing is the itch in the collegial butt, and if they don’t scratch it now, they’ll wake up with an unsalvageably stinky finger.
Sorry to say this, but I find testing necessary. We live in a generation with participation trophies and not getting the shit beat out of you by your father for dropping the ball on that pop fly in little league. We live in a generation that accommodates laziness and mediocrity. We are too comfortable with just being able to have something given to us. This goes with education. Before we had to learn and had to want to learn. We had to look things up in the encylcopedia, we had to actually do the work involved with finding the answer. Now with the internet’s simplicity, there’s no need to remember dates or names, or even basic concepts. Its a sad time when you can ask someone about their major and them not know much about it outside the description the university provides because all the information gets flushed away at the end of the semester.
If anything, we need more rigorous testing or at least a better way to measure our intake and understanding of the subject in question. Its Social Darwinism, and this article is borderline left in what spectrum of the political compass this comes from. Quit handing out things to people who don’t deserve them. The last thing we need is for degrees to be handed out like candy flooding the competitive market for jobs with people who have no business and no knowledge of what subject matter their piece of paper says they’re qualified as an educated person in the area of expertise in question.
Social Darwinism is a thing, don’t muck it up even more so than the Liberal are already trying to do.
12 years ago at 12:55 pmI was expecting a solution to the problem here but I guess that’s too much to ask out of a guy with a degree from DeVry.
12 years ago at 4:04 amI am an engineering student. Almost 100% of my tests (in my major) are open book/open notes. They are still a bitch. Because its not about having the information, its about knowing what to do with it and how to apply it. I think that the sciences have mostly solved this problem. Its the other majors that are lagging. Business, marketing etc. all require students to memorize enormous amounts of information, and spend far less time learning how to actually use that knowledge. Obviously med students need to have the knowledge ingrained in their brains. You cant have your smartphone in surgery. But as an engineer, I don’t need to memorize the Young’s Modulus of steel, or the equation to determine Reynold’s Number. I definitely need to understand what to do with those values, though, and that’s the focus of engineering classes. At least at my school, anyway
12 years ago at 3:47 pmThats true with most real majors. If youre a comm student, you are wasting your(parents) time and money. Nobody needs to know that after youve known somebody for long enough, you might not remember their favorite color. Who gives a fuck, I shouldnt have to pay thousands to be required to take that shit. Go into the real world, experience trying hard and failing, and learn from it.
12 years ago at 12:36 amThey actually take tests at DeVry? Learn something new everyday
12 years ago at 5:35 pmunless you go to devry
12 years ago at 11:23 pm
12 years ago at 3:49 pmThen just tell the professor you’ll do the physical challenge. Problem solved.
12 years ago at 8:28 pm