I’ve discovered one of my biggest complaints as far as testing in college goes. We study for days, up till all hours, all to sit in the testing room for 50 questions in 60 minutes. Most of us finish in about 30. We go crazy, sleep-deprived, ignore all other classes, and drink coffee like water. These exams count for large percentages of our grades. 30 minutes of our day makes up 30% of our grade.
It’s so stressful that we end up memorizing facts and regurgitating them on tests then forgetting them immediately, or we study the wrong things and end up remembering studying what the questions ask, but can’t recall the answers.
So far, I’ve been able to pull a good grade out of thin air for every test (God granted me good test-taking skills, I can guess like none other 
). It stresses me out though and I get angry at the system every time!
One of my teachers has offered a new way of taking our quiz (which in his class is equivalent to a test). This is the best way I’ve heard so far in college. We demonstrate that we have learned the material through a creative means; for me I’ve decided to write a one-act play that uses all the people we learned about in this semester as characters and the various terms will be thrown in there as lessons or opinions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just transfering the teacher’s slides and course packet’s facts into my story, I’m creating a demonstration of my understanding. This way I truly have to learn about the material we learn AND apply it. I feel this is a better way of testing our knowledge–application! We’re not just memorizing facts and playing parrot on the test, we’re learning, which is what college is all about.
