Preparing Students to Write a Provincial Exam

What I teach in the class is usually not mirrored perfectly by the provincial exams. The types of questions I ask on my tests are different from those posed on the provincial exam. The topics emphasized by me (due to my preference or what I think is more important content) are not always the ones emphasized in the examinations at the end of the year. Therefore, when teaching such a course, during the final part of the year, I spend time on preparing my students for the provincial tests.

As a class, we go through old exams, to practice the style and type of questions that are usually given. This time is not really a revision of the material, but a small course on how to write this specific type of exam. During this time, I am not an enemy of the students (not that I ever am, but students think this way once and again). Now the atmosphere becomes: US against THEM: what will “they” try to throw at “us”.

Teaching at this time is very straight forward. The students don’t offer much resistance: for instance, they never say “Why do we need to learn this?” In fact they are very keen on coming to class for these revision sessions. The reason: the students themselves know the exams are extremely important. I have had students ask me why we learned anything else all year, when this (material on the exam) was all we really needed.

I sometimes wonder whether these exams are a waste of time. Is it really good teaching when all I do is “teach to the test”? But then I realized that these provincial exams (worth up to 50% of the student’s final mark) are huge motivators for both the teacher and the student. Without these exams, the student wouldn’t be forced to review the curriculum (and for some students this means learn for the first time), and the teacher wouldn’t be forced to teach the exact curriculum. The more I write, the more I'm convinced, that standardized testing is a necessity. Weird, and I though I was against them.