An “open book examination” is one in which students are allowed to carry their notebooks, textbooks, materials to the examination hall and use them for reference for their examination. These type of examinations aim at developing the skills of critical and creative thinking.
Mental Development.
The essence in the open book examination mean that the traditional method of transferring the words and content written and printed in their textbooks and materials to the minds of students is to be stopped and the mental knowledge growth of the student is to be focussed and developed.
If this kind of education is accepted then the main focus of the education will be on students ability on acquiring the skills which are to be learnt from all those lectures and applying them in real time to answer and complete the examination rather than memorizing it for limited time of period and writing them in a white paper with the institution logo.
Learning vs. Thinking Skills
The kind of education suited for this type of examination is already offered in many institutions in India like IIT’s and many private institutions like VIT and SRM and even the concept of these open book examinations is practiced in some of these institutions.
The purpose these leading institutions are making the concept of these examinations available for students is enriched and evaluate the ability of the student to think and apply the logic which is was taught and are present in front of him in a written or printed format.
These examinations test the problem-solving ability and portraying abilities of the students and make them creative in form of thinking by avoiding the format of learning and writing the same words in the answer sheet.
In these examination the questions will be scenario based and like to describe the definition of something, the student has the concept learned or in front of him should think according to the scenario present in the question paper and address the solution to the problem in his own way and using his/her creativity.
The personal opinion is not to say that the current pattern of examinations are not good or useful it’s just based on the personal opinion of each individual and the way they think, few may prefer to learn something in the book and write the same on the examination paper and few with creative thoughts keep the format away and thinks according to concept and prefer the open book exams.
open book exams are far better than the normal exams and we might know when we attempt the examination in this kind of pattern, indeed yes I attempted this 4 years ago in my first year of engineering as my institution introduced this format for my 2nd internal examination. Even till now I score very good marks only in my 2nd internals and not in the other 2.
I chose this topic and described it because I have experienced it and felt it very useful than the normal examination patterns followed now in India.
Thanks to my institution to letting me know the importance of this pattern and helping me to learn to use my thinking abilities completely.
