Test papers should be curated only for students and not the other way around!
Tests are a great way to assess student's skills and understanding. No matter how prepared a student is, everyone dreads exam night. Examination plays a hugely important role in the life of every student.
Grades, marks, and results define the whole life of students. But, what no one talks about much is that tests also determine the skills and abilities of teachers. So, every teacher should follow 3 steps while preparing test papers for students as they are also a means of their own assessment.
In our conventional education system, the purpose of examination should be reconsidered. Because most of the tests in our conventional learning system are administered and judged in a highly biased and discriminatory way. Where the test only focuses on a socially constructed concept of 'merit' which is essentially biological! Teachers don't take any responsibility when a student gets bad grades or fails an exam. As the exam should be a two-way assessment for both sides, the test papers should be arranged in a more simple and explanatory manner.
The purpose of exams should be to encourage students to be more involved in their studies. Therefore, test papers should be prepared in such a way that rewards students for paying attention to reading, rather than relying solely on suggestions and notes. The questions should be informative and easy to decipher so that students can easily understand them and answer if they have thoroughly read the book. Asking unnecessarily difficult questions just to make students nervous or shocked is not what is expected of a teacher.
Questions must be put forward with the intention of creating opportunities for the students to respond to their learning. The questions should not be a means of demonstrating the teacher's ability or competence without prioritizing the ability of the students. Also, students should not be punished for making mistakes so negative marking is something that can be avoided instead, their weaknesses should be corrected by the teacher.
The questions should be aggregated to get feedback from the students as well. Feedback on whether the learning or teaching method followed by the school or college is well accepted by the students or not can only be honestly presented by the students.
So, the questions should be formulated in such a way as to be able to deal with these concerning issues.
