Open Book Tests; Not Always an Easier Option?

It is normal for students to feel stressed before taking an exam, specially now when they are  at an university level. Many students feel that this anxiety goes away when they are able to use textbooks during the exams because it will enable the student to verify every answer that they mark; unfortunately, it is important to make sure that the time allotted for the exam is plentiful, or the student may run into some problems.

This point can be exemplified by my last quiz attempted for my social media online class because even though the quiz was open book, the time allotted was too short for physical verification of every answer. This mistake happens quite often at the colligate level and it can be deducated that students should know better by this time of their scholarly career; unfortunately, many students, such as myself, need to repeat this mistake to finally understand the message. It is important to understand that at this education level the professors are not looking to create incredibly favorable conditions for their students by given them not only ample time to take the test but the book as well.

Most professors expect all there students to have an abundant amount of knowledge in there minds stored and the book will just answer key uncertainties for then during exams. Though this is the thought behind this tactic many student, like myself, may place an unhealthy amount of stress behind their grades and look for visual verification for every answers even though they are completely certain of the answers they are marking. This kind of thinking will ultimately lead to a “double-taking” of exams leading to uncertainty that ,not given the book to aid in the quiz, would have not happened. Hopefully many students will read this blog and learn the lesson that I had to experience this week first hand, and look to the open book exams with a little more caution and a little less test anxiety.

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