WHAT EXAMS CAN'T TELL YOU

There is something funny about exams...
You can spend months attending classes, asking questions, watching videos, reading books and actually understanding what you are learning. Then one particular morning, someone puts a question paper in front of you and suddenly your brain decides to take a vacation.

You look at the question, the question looks at you and both of you just sit there.
But seriously, I have always wondered how much an exam actually tells us about a person's intelligence.

I don't think exams are completely useless. In fact, I think we need some form of assessment. If someone is studying medicine, engineering, law, accounting or any other serious profession, we need some way of knowing whether they have learned the important things before allowing them to practice.

The problem starts when we begin treating examination scores as if they are a complete measurement of a human being's intelligence because they are not.... Someone can be very intelligent and still perform badly in an examination... Maybe they don't perform well under pressure. Maybe they understand concepts better when they can actually work with them instead of simply writing about them. Maybe they need more time to process information. Maybe they are terrible at remembering exactly what they studied two weeks ago but extremely good at figuring things out when faced with a real problem.

And then there is the opposite situation.

Someone can become extremely good at passing exams without necessarily becoming extremely good at using the knowledge outside the examination hall.

This is where I think education becomes interesting.

There is a difference between knowing something and knowing what to do with it.

I can memorise a formula and reproduce it perfectly during an examination. But if you give me a real-life problem where that formula could be useful and I have no idea how to apply it, what exactly have I learned?

I can memorise the definition of entrepreneurship.

I can explain the characteristics of a good entrepreneur.

I can even write five pages about business strategy but if I cannot identify an actual business problem when I see one, communicate with customers, manage money, make decisions or adapt when something goes wrong, then my knowledge has a serious limitation.

This doesn't mean memory is useless.

Memory actually matters a lot. We cannot understand advanced ideas if we don't have some basic knowledge stored in our heads. Research on testing has also found that being tested can sometimes improve long-term recall and retention... So I don't think the answer is to completely remove exams.

I think the bigger question is what kind of exam are we giving?

If the easiest way to pass a course is to memorise pages of notes the night before and reproduce them the next morning, then we shouldn't be surprised when students focus on memorising instead of understanding and honestly, students are not stupid for doing that.

If the system rewards memorisation, people will learn how to memorise.

If the system rewards understanding and application, people will eventually learn to focus on those things too.

This is why I like the idea of mixing different forms of assessment.

Let students write exams, yes... But also give them projects.

Give them problems that don't have an obvious answer.

Let them explain something in their own words.

Let them build something.

Let them defend an idea.

Let them work with other people.

Let them take what they learned in the classroom and use it somewhere outside the classroom.

Because sometimes the most intelligent answer is not the one you memorised.

Sometimes it is the one you can figure out when nobody has given you the answer.

And there is another thing we rarely talk about: exams can measure preparation as much as they measure knowledge.

Someone who has spent weeks practising past questions may know exactly how an examination works. They understand the patterns, the common question styles and the kind of answers examiners expect.

Another person might understand the subject just as well but have less experience with the examination format.

One gets the higher score.

Does that automatically mean one is more intelligent?

I don't think life is that simple.

Real life rarely gives us four options and tells us to pick A, B, C or D.

Your boss doesn't usually say, "You have 30 minutes. Explain why this project is failing using exactly three points."

A customer doesn't come with a marking scheme.

A business problem doesn't tell you which chapter of your textbook contains the answer.

Life is messy.

You have incomplete information, limited time, unexpected problems and sometimes absolutely no idea what you're doing.

And that is where application becomes important.

UNESCO describes learning assessment more broadly than simply checking whether students can recall information. Assessment can also look at what learners know and what they can do with what they have learned.

That distinction matters.

Maybe the goal shouldn't be to create students who are excellent at answering questions.

Maybe the goal should be to create people who are excellent at solving problems.

There is a difference.

An exam can tell me that you know something.

A practical task can show me what happens when you actually have to use it.

And I think we need both.

So, are exams a measure of intelligence?

To some extent, they can measure certain types of knowledge, preparation, reasoning and academic performance.

But I don't believe one examination score can tell the complete story of someone's intelligence.

Some people are brilliant on paper.

Some people are brilliant with their hands.

Some are brilliant at communicating.

Some can solve problems nobody else noticed.

Some can build businesses.

Some can create art.

Some can understand people.

Some can remain calm when everyone else is panicking.

Human ability is much bigger than what can fit inside an examination booklet.

Maybe we should stop asking, "How intelligent is this person because of their score?"

And start asking:

"What can this person actually do with what they know?"

Because at the end of the day, nobody is going to give me an examination paper when real life gets difficult.

Life will simply ask the question and I will have to figure out the answer...

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