Summation: Auren Hoffman

with Auren Hoffman
May 25, 1997

All Tests Should be Open Book
Analytics, not raw Memory, should determine our fate
by Auren Hoffman

I walked into an accounting midterm last year dumbfounded. Five minutes earlier a classmate had informed me that the test was closed book. Closed book? I had never heard of such a stupid concept.
FICTION: Open book exams are easy.
FACT: Open books exams are much tougher than closed book exams. These exams differentiate those who truly understand the concepts from those who cram the night before.
As a recent Industrial Engineering graduate from UC Berkeley, all my upper division classes, with the exception of Business classes, gave open book tests. Why? Because open book tests are rigorous, require thought, and work to apply class concepts. Closed book tests, on the other hand, require massive memorization and do not prepare the student for practical, real-life situations. In the corporate world, memorizing GAPP is a waste of time. Every accountant has a handbook at her desk to use as a reference.
Closed book tests require little new thought. To do well on the tests, one just memorizes the data. The tests can never be very hard because the students are not allowed to have a book in front of them. In fact, the average grade on business tests is usually around 85%, as opposed to about 65% for engineering classes.
Open book tests force students to fully understand all class concepts. The "plug and chug" questions are replaced by problems which require deep thought, understanding, and intellect. The concepts of the class lectures are applied in new and exciting ways, rather than just rehashing a problem you've done 5 times before.
Even worse, many closed book classes are a waste of time. Because these classes force you to memorize information rather than understand concepts, students walk away from the class learning very little. Within a year's time, students forget most of what they learned. It took me almost five minutes to remember what the acronym "FIFO" stands for (business) but I can detail exactly when to use Markov's Chains (engineering).
The only legitimate reason to have closed book tests is because the CPA exam, and many exams like it, are also closed. This argument, however, is very flawed. The CPA exam itself should be open book. Even more importantly, understanding the concepts can go a long way. Students who take these standard tests have to relearn and rememorize the material anyway - they might as well have a good knowledge of the concepts through the classroom.
Summation:: Closed book classes underutilize our brains. Open book tests open our minds. "The mind is like a parachute, it doesn't function when it is closed."

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