What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear “test” or “exam”? For me, it’s more or less like talking to a beautiful lady; anxiety, sweating, and stress. For me, the more stressed I was before a test the more “important” the test was. For me, exams were grades that either shamed the student or “awarded” the student. For me, exams were the time to study for the purpose of passing that exam with no regard to the learning value.

The saddest part is that a big portion of students is like me. That’s a shame. For me, exam was never about assessment of whether I grasped the ideas that were presented to me. For me, exam was never about how much knowledge I gained, and whether or not I could apply that knowledge. For me, exam was never about critical thinking but rather memorization.

Before I start blaming the system, I blame myself first. I failed to value the content itself, and use exams as opportunity to test my understanding regardless of the grading system. After 19 years of being a student (from kindergarten to PhD), I still don’t know how to study for a damn exam in a proper way. I guess I was that crappy student after all.

Based on the contemporary research in education and psychology, the remainder of the article is devoted to the effectiveness of academic examination as an assessment tool, the effect of academic examination stress on the health of students, and what can be done to improve on the situation.

Academic examination is a form of educational assessment aimed at improving the quality of learning and/or accrediting student’s achievement¹. The first written examination was based in China almost 1500 years ago. It is known as Chinses Imperial Examination, and was used as a tool to select members for the government².

As a freshmen student, the first thing I learned that was it is okay to ask lecturers for tips for exams. The first time I heard a student asking that, I really thought that the lecturer will accuse the student of cheating his way to the questions or trying to be a smarty pants. To my surprise, the lecturer happily gave us some tips.

The first issue with that question is that whoever asks this question all he/she aims to is to score not to test his/her understanding of the subject. And the second problem is when the lecturer answers the question because this indicates that the lecturer is emphasizing the importance of grades.

Professor David Boud, a researcher and an expert on education assessment, has already pointed out such disconnection between the use of assessment tools and their actual purpose years ago. In a conference paper of his in 1990¹ he argues that assessment tools are often misused or being utilized in a wrong manner so that students end up focusing on trivial parts and ignoring the learning process.

According to Boud, this disconnection leads students (i) to emphasize memorization, practicing problems that are being asked in exams, and focusing on trivial skills, while neglecting the actual point of the assessment tool (ii) to focus on only exam-kind-of-questions and ignore the rest of the content, and (iii) to value grades so much so that those who score high end up retaining misconceptions about the subject. All that makes examinations nothing but a waste of time and effort.

To Boud, examination is not a bad idea itself but it’s being exploited very easily. As an alternative, he suggests practices such as self-assessment and peer review. Readers who would like to read more about self-assessment and peer review can check these related works for Boud^3,4.

Examination not only drift students from the actual learning process but also puts them under tremendous stress. Students under academic examination stress are prone to cope with stress in unhealthy manner by forming bad habits or by being susceptible to take low-quality decisions, a 2005 study revealed⁵. The study found that the consumption of addictive substances, e.g. cigarettes and caffeine, increased around three-fold for students who were under examination stress compared with those who were not. This increase of addictive substances was attributed to the poor coping mechanism with stress during the time that was leading to examination. The same stressed students, during examination period, have justified bad habits such as consuming junk food and ditching work out and household chores calming that it was for the sake of studying. While, in actuality, they behaved in a complete opposite manner. They slept longer, wasted time on trivial tasks, and eventually failed to meet deadlines. In short, the study concludes that academic examination stress impairs self-regulation and control, and a student during examination is expected to become distracted and out of self-control leading to poor quality decisions and habits.

A recent study examined changes in hormones, antigens, and some other immune cells for students under examination stress⁶. Out of 10 different cells only one antigen, B lymphocytes, showed a significant increase but it was enough to have the authors alerted. Generally, increase in B lymphocytes level in healthy patients is correlated with increase in immune activity that may lead to tissue inflammation. In another word, abnormal changes in B lymphocytes lead to autoimmune disease, which is the status the students were at due to exam stress. To some less extent, although interesting, the study also pointed out that mindfulness may not have a strong effect to mediate examination stress as one might think. However, the results on mindfulness are still not decisive and further studies are needed to examine the situation closely.

In conclusion, the side effects of examination topple its main purpose; learning. Conventional examination is hung up on classifying students’ performance and putting emphasis on “exams” with little regard to the education process and learning value. Also, examination creates stress and unwanted bad habits and undervalue the learning process among students. We are ought to change that system by adopting new assessment tools and putting emphasis on the learning process itself instead of wasting time on menial work and bold memorization for the sake of passing exams only.