Exams have never made a whole lot of sense to me (the amount of time I wasted studying for the GMAT didn’t make me any better at maths than I was before). I always thought that there must be a better way of testing my knowledge than making me have to strategically memorize everything. In a way, all that is doing is help me to learn how to cheat the system. Now that this kind of sit down in a sterile room for hours surrounded by thousands of others is not possible, perhaps it is finally the time to get rid of sit down exams altogether. If you want students to learn the material, to understand it and be able to apply it, or to be inspired by the material and take it further, then test that through other means. You could have them set how they want to be tested and “mark” both how they chose to be tested and what they deliver. Their understanding, and their mental health, will be better off because of it.
