\nA true academic, in my opinion, is someone who loves learning and loves taking courses. I’m one of those: I love elegant concepts, surprising truths, and discovering how to engineer a solution from first principles to “where the rubber meets the road.”<\/p>\n
\nTo a true academic, the exam is an anticipated pleasure — three or four hours of peace and quiet during which one can respond to questions probing one’s newfound knowledge. It’s a theatre for creativity and self-expression. <\/p>\n
\nIn my recent university courses (since 2019), I started out writing paper-based exams. As I recall, my last one was back in very early March 2020, literally a week or so before COVID restrictions took hold. After that, paper, in-person exams were no longer available. However, a new venue was instead: the ‘live’ online exam. This new format involves typing the exam into your computer while you’re being monitored by said computer’s camera.<\/p>\n
\nHaving liked the old, paper-based system, including my little rituals and familiarity with the exam rooms, I was skeptical about the online format. It turns out, however, to be even better, depending on your tastes.<\/p>\n
\nI write the online exam in my house; I had to travel about 45 minutes away to take the paper based ones. The results typically return sooner as well relative to what I might foresee from the paper format. The computer requirements, which I worried about at first, with my history of using old clunkers, seem easy enough to meet.<\/p>\n
\nIt’s much easier to type than to write with pencil or pen, so of course the online format is easier assuming the exam content is the same.<\/p>\n
I’ve been won over to online exams. That doesn’t say I won’t happily return to my old ways of writing paper exams, should the need arise:)<\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about fine points of academic life: the tutor mentions online exams. A true academic, in my opinion, is someone who loves learning and loves taking courses. I’m one of those: I love elegant concepts, surprising truths, and discovering how …<\/p>\n