Two days ago, I took the IBHRE Certification Exam for Competency in Cardiac Electrophysiology for the Allied Professional. I know. You’re already asleep.
It’s a required test for my current day job: Lead Clinical Technologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center Electrophysiology Lab.
Wake up.
The exam was evil. I’ve always been a really good test taker. I’m the kind of person who walks out of an exam saying, “I knew I blew a few questions and guessed on others, and I’m mad because I’ll probably be lucky to get a B.” And then I get an A. People hate test-takers like me. I hate test-takers like me. If you’re a Harry Potter fan – this is the only imaginable area in which I’m anything at all like Hermione Granger. Only I don’t study and still get the A.
Except for this exam, for which I studied for almost 6 months. I’ve never, in all my years of taking tests, walked out of an exam saying, “I think I failed that.” Never. Until two days ago.
Examinations are really quite evil. They hardly test knowledge – especially multiple choice. This was a 5-hour exam comprised of 200 multiple choice questions. I’d rather have sat down on Wednesday with one question for 5 hours: “Tell me everything you know about electrophysiology.” Then someone could grade what I actually know. Two hundred intentionally tricky multiple choice questions with ECGs and EGMs that were difficult to read on test-taking software that belongs in 1987 covering an impossibly broad area of knowledge is not a good way to find out what I really know.
I’ve just finished my second Master’s degree. Neither Master’s degree that I hold tested knowledge with written examinations. Papers and portfolios were the methods of evaluation for both of those degrees, and I learned more from both of them thanalmost anything in undergrad. Despite being a good test-taker, I’ve come to disbelieve in the value of these sorts of exams.
I could complain about Wednesday’s test – and did so in the post-test survey – for a long time. But instead, I’ll make a loose analogy to life to attempt to put some actual meaning into this post. An exam like the one I just took is in many ways like the unpredictability of evil. (No really … wait for it.) You can make all the right preparations in life and still run into a completely unexpected tragedy or turn of events that destroys 6 months – or 6 decades – of preparation.
So there. I’ve proved it. Exams are evil.
And I’m all signed up for the IBHRE Certification Exam for Compentency in Cardiac Rhythm Device Therapy for the Allied Professional in September. You can stay asleep now.
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And the moral of the story is, Never study for exams. Or at least, don’t study so much you fry your brain.
Good thoughts, though. Multiple choice exams are really only good for testing basic knowledge of facts & figures. But they suck at testing comprehension & competency. But then I’m of the opinion that our educational system sucks & is rigged to produce half-illiterate worker bees for the State. But that probably comes from being a libertarian & from reading too much John Taylor Gatto.
Also like your analogy of exams & evil.