Word: exam
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last March, the Harvard Law Review noted student feeling "that the fate of a man's legal career is irrevocably determined during two weeks of June in his first year of law school." Exam grades--changed only last year to letters, replacing a numerical system carried out to decimal points--determine membership in honorary organizations which are crucial to career plans...
...other hand, it might be advantageous in some courses to take the examination several months after the course has finished. A Math 105 instructor once told his section that he would like to give the exam in the course at the end of the following semester, or even a year later. It took, he thought, that long for your mind to digest the material and accept, on the level of faith, the concepts he was trying to put across. The same is true of other courses, and the student should have the right to adjust his test-taking...
Giving make-up exams to a substantial proportion of the College would of course involve additional expense, but it would not be exorbitant. A more serious problem would be to find while the term is in session enough rooms to use for test-taking. But one could give everyone not taking a make-up a mid-semester reading period. Some professors would be inconvenienced by having to write an additional exam, but the inconvenience is more than counterbalanced by the greater freedom offered students...
...most students, simply knowing they will not be forced to take an exam if they are not ready will take enough pressure off their work to allow them to study more calmly, and more effectively. Permitting optional make-ups will add only slightly to the number of students delaying their exams, yet will let many more students go into an examination room satisfied that they are adeqately prepared...
Perhaps we are not expected to feel satisfied taking an exam, but a little such satisfaction would make examinations much more an integral part of the learning process at Harvard, instead of a ritualistic postscript...