Examinations and tests have been and still remain a major part of education in this generation and past generations , our intelligence are always judged by how well we perform in our examinations and tests. We read for a whole term and semester just to pass our examination, because that's the only guarantee to move to the next phase of your academic pursuit. A good score or grade tells if a person understands the subject and a poor grade questions the ability of such students and determines if they are intelligent or not, but does examination really measure our intelligence? Because I believe they are just a test of memory and can't tell if a person is intelligent or not.
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No doubt examination also measures our intelligence, knowledge, understanding, reasoning and problem solving ability, because examinations require students to analyze an information, apply knowledge, arrive at a logical conclusion, and it takes intelligence to get to this point , it takes intelligence to pass an examination, but that's not all to tell if a person is intelligent or not.
Personally, I believe that an examination needs more of memorization , during an examination, students are expected to remember, students are asked to define, meant to remember a date or formula without their books, and all this is done within a limited time and this is an advantage that a student who has a good memory has over a student who understands the subject better but couldn't remember. They are both intelligent, but memory is all we need to pass an examination most times, even when there's no understanding and I believe intelligence is broader than memory.
Many factors can affect the memory of a person too, especially when there's a time limit, let's consider issues like anxiety, pressure, faced with unfamiliar questions, or certain health issues all this can also affect examination performance, even when the person is intelligent enough to pass, they could have an excellent memory and still battle to solve practical problems.
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Let's consider one of the known courses in my country, Mass Communication. This is a course that requires communication , creativity, emotional intelligence , adaptability and uniqueness, and you find yourself studying different subjects at the university while studying Mass Communication, instead of real life skills. Examinations only make you memorize definitions, dates and many others that require passing an examination , but those qualities needed can't be measured by passing an examination or answering some questions on a piece of paper, because it requires intelligence to possess these qualities and that's why a person who fails examinations can fit in to the career in real life.
This is also applicable to many courses, because the real world doesn't care about your grades, but rather gives you real life difficulties that require intelligence in many areas to succeed in them.
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Examinations aren't useless, they make assessments easy for institutions, but examinations can't determine intelligence to me. Rather, they should be a combination of practical assessments, projects, presentations, research, internships, and teamwork, this will help passing an institution not only rely on memory but rather intelligence, because it tests if a person can apply the knowledge acquired or simply memorize.
In conclusion, I believe educational success shouldn't be about producing students who are just good at passing examinations, but developing students who apply the knowledge learnt and face real life task confidently. The real measure of education and examination success shouldn't simply be how much we can memorize and remember, but rather what we can do with the knowledge we have learned.
