Examination

An examination is an educational assessment. It measures a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness or ability or standing in some other topic. It is a set of questions designed to measure those things.

 

Written exams were first used at Cambridge University by the professor of chemistry in 1792.

Oxford University stakes the claim to have been the first to use the word to describe any instructor or trainer. In the early eighteenth century students used the word informally to refer to a private tutor who "drove" them like driving a coach along bumpy roads when preparing undergraduates for their examinations.

The phrase "wooden spoon" meaning a prize for coming last comes from Cambridge University. At one time those students with the lowest honors in exams were presented with a wooden spoon, while those with higher ones got a silver or golden one.

On July 4, 1985, 13-year-old Ruth Lawrence achieved a first-class degree in Mathematics at Oxford University. The youngest British person ever to get a first, she took just two years to complete the three-year course.

In China, roughly 9.4 million students take the Gaokao, a college entrance exam that lasts two days. During testing time, factories shut down, motorists are banned form honking, and police monitor the streets to ensure that the students are not distracted.

The Suneung, an abbreviation for College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) in Korean, is an eight-hour marathon of back-to-back exams in South Korea. It not only dictates whether the students will go to university, but can affect their job prospects, income, where they will live and even future relationships. The test is offered every November, but the exact dates may change annually.

Everyone in South Korea makes silence to avoid disturbing students taking the most important exam of their lives. Constructions are paused, banks close, airplane traffic is modified and even military training ceases during the Suneung.

Cheating on exams or any other assignment at the University of Virginia is punished by expulsion. There is no lesser punishment.

To prevent cheating during university entrance exams Uzbekistan shuts off the entire country's internet and SMS service for five hours on exam day.

In Bangladesh, youth as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.

Source BBC