Over the past years, I’ve been involved in organizing and monitoring four exams. Yesterday marked my fourth and likely final exam monitoring session for the foreseeable future. Now seems like an opportune moment to reflect on my exam organization journey.

My first exam experience was relatively straightforward. As I was unfamiliar with the exam content, my primary responsibility was taking students to the restrooms. I recall accompanying nearly 10 students during the session. For the remainder of the time, I sat at the back of the room, occupying myself with some drawing.

This exam was identical to the first, but I was tasked with designing a significant portion of the questions. Initially, formulating questions seemed straightforward, but I later realized my inability to create effective ones. My first draft incorporated connections between various questions. During the review process, I was advised to maximize information density in questions, as stressed students prefer concise text. Additional challenges emerged when I began grading the exams. For example, open-ended questions consistently yielded unexpected answers, requiring me to modify the grading scheme while maintaining consistency with previous assessments.

The exam monitoring this time was more demanding as I began responding to student inquiries. My limited knowledge of the entire exam often required me to seek assistance from colleagues, and occasionally I struggled to comprehend the questions.

Grading the exam proved to be the most challenging aspect of the process. Evaluating over 100 exams, deciphering handwriting, determining fair point allocations, and recording scores was an incredibly tedious task. Unlike traditional mathematics exams that focus primarily on calculations, our exam encouraged creative thinking. Each answer contained implicit assumptions about the question, requiring careful interpretation to avoid excessive point deductions. The process was extremely time-consuming and offered minimal personal benefit or satisfaction.

This was a different exam, where I again designed one part and monitored its administration. Fortunately, due to its advanced nature, few students registered for this exam. This time, I had the privilege of collaborating with exceptional colleagues. Despite these advantages, the design process still demanded considerable effort on my part.

A unique aspect of this exam was that I also developed the course material, as it was a newly introduced subject. The topic proved challenging, and the exercises were demanding. Students expressed concerns about the complexity of the material. Consequently, we faced the task of devising ways to simplify the exam questions without compromising their effectiveness.

Now comes the most recent exam, where I took on the role of a coordinator. This position entailed not only designing my portion of the tasks but also finding colleagues to design other tasks, managing the timeline, reviewing drafts, printing exams, coordinating exam monitoring, and overseeing the grading process. Fortunately, I had the support of proactive and helpful colleagues, which allowed everything to proceed smoothly.

The monitoring process proved particularly demanding this time. As I was now familiar with the entire exam, I was responsible for reading instructions, making announcements, and answering as many questions as possible. I had to arrive at the exam rooms by 8 AM, forgoing breakfast, and remained standing and focused until noon. In retrospect, I may have been overly diligent due to inexperience and could have perhaps allowed myself to relax more. However, I’ll never know for certain, as this marks the conclusion of my exam organization duties.

Well, not quite the end, as I still need to complete the grading and submit the results.

After four instances of exam organization experience, I must admit that I do not recommend it. This opinion is, of course, highly personal, as I am not particularly inclined towards teaching. From my perspective, it is a job that demands significant effort while offering minimal returns. I can confidently say that I invest more time in the exam process than any individual student taking it.

The process of designing and grading exams presents a complex optimization challenge. There’s an inverse relationship between the time spent on design and the time required for grading. The less effort put into crafting the exam, the more time-consuming the grading process becomes. Moreover, it’s disheartening to spend two full days meticulously designing and reviewing a question, only to have it attempted by a mere handful of students.