Efficiency of Testing

With 2 tests down and one more to go, I'm almost at the finish line. Next semester, I'll be going into my senior year and I can't help but ask myself some questions. Every semester, it's the same "gig;" go to class, memorize some facts and procedures, and take a test at the end. The problem is, however, that most of the time, the test counts for the majority of your grade. Most of the time, the teachers assign midterms and tests approximately %30 each of your grade which only leaves a small portion open for homework's and projects.

I think the concept of testing is a very inefficient one. First, what you know at test time you will probably not remember the next day. That is because testing normally pushes students to just memorize, rather then learn. Putting so much material in a short test doesn't allow the student to actually learn the material so memorizing just stores the information in your "temporary" section of your brain. Secondly, if this is the case, then all your grades don't mean much. They only show how well you memorized the material which doesn't mean anything when you get to the work world.

Through the years, I've found that I learn much more from simple homework's and projects. They require extensive thinking about problems; time that you don't have when your trying to complete a test. I feel that since we have been doing testing in this manner, the value of your diploma has gone down. Now, I feel as if it is just a piece of paper rather than all the knowledge you have built up over the years. If something doesn't change, we might be in for a big problem in the future. Until that time, we should try and learn, rather just memorize for the future.