Final school exams should be open book: Australian Tutoring Association

As Year 12 students across the country begin their final exams, some education experts are urging schools to permit students to take in their notes.

HSC exams should be open book, the Australia Tutoring Association says. Source: SBS News

The Australian Tutoring Association (ATA) has called for schools across the nation to hold open-book final exams as students begin sitting them on Thursday.

ATA CEO Mohan Dhall told SBS that closed-book testing stifles critical thinking and did not examine the skills students needed in the future.

“At the moment what we’re doing is we’re requiring students to rely on memory rather than application,” Mr Dhall said.

“The pressure is not on how you use resources, it’s on how well you memorise [them].”

Year 12 student at MLC School Natasha Opacic told SBS she had spent the last few weeks writing and re-writing her essays.

She is one of 77,163 students sitting the Higher School Certificate (HSC), the highest educational award at secondary school in NSW.

“I feel like there’s a lot that needs to be remembered because you’re really not sure as to what they’re going to ask you,” Ms Opacic said.

The NSW Board of Studies told SBS there were no plans to introduce open-book exams for HSC students, because efforts had already been made to reduce opportunities for pre-prepared responses.

“Fifty per cent of a student’s final HSC mark is based on assessment work that they do during the course of their HSC studies,” president of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, Chris Presland said.

“Most of that work tends to be assignment or research-based tasks, not traditional testing.”

Jennifer Katrib, a Year 12 student at Maronite College of the Holy Family in Sydney's West said she welcomed the prospect of open-book exams.

“There are little nitty gritty elements to the exams that you forget because of your nerves.

“For example in Legal Studies, knowing media articles, case studies, statistics, just to have them on a sheet with you I think would strengthen my response.”

However, George Sassine, another Year 12 student from Maronite College said even though he "would like a page of notes ... I think it kind of defeats the purpose of examinations as well.” 

The last HSC exam will be held on Friday November 4.