Questions about exam formats at different schools

[Peanutt13]

Wondering if anyone is willing to share the testing strategies/formats at the vet school they attend currently or attended within the past few years. I've heard a lot of different formats and am curious to hear opinions from those who have had experiences at other vet schools. Please feel free to share any information including but not limited to:
What school do you go to?
When do they test? (Weekly, biweekly, block exams, individual class exams, etc.)
How do they test? (Multiple choice, short answer, hands on, combination, etc)
What do you like and dislike about the testing format?
Does the current testing format benefit your learning? Why/why not?

Any information would be greatly appreciated! Especially about which school you go to and what their general format is. Thanks!

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[ziggyandjazzy]

Wondering if anyone is willing to share the testing strategies/formats at the vet school they attend currently or attended within the past few years. I've heard a lot of different formats and am curious to hear opinions from those who have had experiences at other vet schools. Please feel free to share any information including but not limited to:
What school do you go to?
When do they test? (Weekly, biweekly, block exams, individual class exams, etc.)
How do they test? (Multiple choice, short answer, hands on, combination, etc)
What do you like and dislike about the testing format?
Does the current testing format benefit your learning? Why/why not?

Any information would be greatly appreciated! Especially about which school you go to and what their general format is. Thanks!

Sure, I'll bite

- Oregon State
- During a 10 week quarter, most classes have two midterms and a final. Few classes have one midterm and a final. one class had weekly exams. We are generally in 4-6+ classes at a time so figure there might be 12-18 exams in a 10 week period (not including quizzes which are a part of many classes also).
- Some classes are only MT. Some are MT and short answer. Many classes have lab/hands on exams and quizzes as well (micro anatomy, gross anatomy, neurology, bacteriology, pathology etc etc).
- I might come back and answer the second two later

 

[Peanutt13]

Sure, I'll bite

- Oregon State
- During a 10 week quarter, most classes have two midterms and a final. Few classes have one midterm and a final. one class had weekly exams. We are generally in 4-6+ classes at a time so figure there might be 12-18 exams in a 10 week period (not including quizzes which are a part of many classes also).
- Some classes are only MT. Some are MT and short answer. Many classes have lab/hands on exams and quizzes as well (micro anatomy, gross anatomy, neurology, bacteriology, pathology etc etc).
- I might come back and answer the second two later

Thank you for answering! This seems like a lot. How much time do you have to take each exam and how many questions are there generally?

 

[JustPaws]

What school do you go to? Mich State, this info is for new curriculum, but may change as it is tweaked for future years

When do they test? (Weekly, biweekly, block exams, individual class exams, etc.)
Systems Classes last from 2-4 weeks, with the great majority lasting 3 weeks.
Each course is run differently, but majority is one midterm and one final, occasionally one test per week for 3 week class. Daily quizzes either preclass at home or during class
Examsoft exams, d2l quizzes

Also some classes do iclicker in class but are usually participation not right/wrong

Lab exams first year were generally paired same day with the written midterm or final, but were scantron.

We have a couple semester long courses, One Health has a midterm and a final, and weekly quizzes, but the other two generally only have occasional quizzes

How do they test? (Multiple choice, short answer, hands on, combination, etc)
The great majority are multiple choice, including lab exams. Clinical skills are hands-on, verbal exams with an animal. E.g. show how to do retroillumination and explain what you are doing and what it tests, or show on this horse where you find the digital pulse

What do you like and dislike about the testing format?
Like
Almost instant grades (may change if exam gets tweaked)
Not penalized for spelling
Sometimes the answers help you remember the answer
They let us touch and move lab specimens
No finals week stress, usually dont have multiple exams stacked in a week

Dislike
Feels like we are always being tested
Only get 5 minutes to review wrong answers IF we get a review

Does the current testing format benefit your learning? Why/why not?
Yes, I like it, though wish we got the questions and answers to review later but I get that then people would give tests to later classes

Time/Length
Exams range from 10-90 questions
Get 30min-2hrs

 

[SnowJ]

Wondering if anyone is willing to share the testing strategies/formats at the vet school they attend currently or attended within the past few years. I've heard a lot of different formats and am curious to hear opinions from those who have had experiences at other vet schools. Please feel free to share any information including but not limited to:
What school do you go to?
When do they test? (Weekly, biweekly, block exams, individual class exams, etc.)
How do they test? (Multiple choice, short answer, hands on, combination, etc)
What do you like and dislike about the testing format?
Does the current testing format benefit your learning? Why/why not?

Any information would be greatly appreciated! Especially about which school you go to and what their general format is. Thanks!

-UMN
-Each class is individual. They try to work out our schedule to have about 1 exam a week, but sometimes its two and sometimes its none. Each class has different numbers of exams; some just have two, some have several, a handful have zero. Depends on the coordinator and class history generally.
-A vast majority of our exams are multiple choice, but some are short answer, particularly anatomy and pathology where you're identifying things from pictures and describing things. A lot of our classes are switching to taking exams online using canvas (online class software, like moodle if you've used that), but several still do pencil and paper bubble sheets. A few online exams we take at home- first year most of the exams online are taken in the classroom. Only a few classes do cumulative exams.
-I like having exams spread throughout the semester; yes it's stressful, but better than trying to cram for all subjects to take all in a week like finals.
-I mostly don't like the lack of consistency across classes; sys path still does pencil paper bubble sheets even though it would be much less labor intensive (and paper wasting) to use canvas. It mostly comes down to whether professors want to learn to use canvas or not (it was a pretty recent change, my class is the first to use it for every class) but it creates differences in how fast we get feedback.
-I think the format benefits my learning as much as it can. Most people end up studying exam-to-exam; if the next exam is anatomy, that's what you're studying for. I do like a regular review of the material. Obviously that's not the best way to retain, because you are always cramming, but because of the sheer volume of material it gets most of us through it just fine.

 

[battie]

What school do you go to?

University of Illinois

When do they test? (Weekly, biweekly, block exams, individual class exams, etc.)

We have 8 week quarters all 3 didactic years. One of those quarters is spent in clinics, so we have 3 didactic quarters per year. First and third years have their midterm on Friday of week 4, and second years have their midterm on Friday of week 4 and Monday of week 5. First, second, and third years have their final on Thursday and Friday of week 8. They are block exams where all the core classes are represented (in proportion to the number of lecture hours spent) on the midterm or final. We get one grade for each quarter. Exams are worth between 30-45% of a quarter's grade.

How do they test? (Multiple choice, short answer, hands on, combination, etc)

The vast majority of questions are multiple choice.

First year: there is a practical anatomy exam using our cadavers we dissected out as 1/3 of the exams.
Second year: during second quarter, there is a completely separate lab exam. There is matching and fill in the blank during this year as well.
Third year: exclusively multiple choice.

What do you like and dislike about the testing format?

I have a love-hate relationship purely due to how much exams are worth. First quarter second year, exams are worth 45% of the grade. So if you are a poor test taker, or you have a debilitating event that happens in that quarter, you're screwed. I was also used to essay based exams from undergrad because our classes only had 10-15 people in them since I went to a small school. So multiple choice where there's no partial credit sucks.

But if you're decent at every subject except one, that can save you from failing. If anatomy was completely separate from everything, I would not have gotten as far into the program very possibly. And it makes it easy to "integrate across the curriculum" and connect different classes together. The second year day two final does this pretty extensively.

Does the current testing format benefit your learning? Why/why not?

Absolutely not, but I don't think testing in general benefits learning, to be honest. The vast majority of higher education (not just vet school, but all of higher education) uses testing to be able to keep their accreditation and certify their graduates are "qualified" to be able to do whatever field they are going into. Testing isn't used as a learning tool; it's used as a benchmark for the lowest common denominator to make sure people are at least competent to go out into the world.

We can't get copies of the test after we're done, we can only just go look at them to see what questions we got wrong. But we can't take much if any info on those questions with us. So for someone like me, I just know that I got X subject wrong with Y professor. Well, depending on the subject and professor, that can be 150 slides worth of information that I tested poorly on. Not really useful for me to go back and review.


I will say that the testing format would not have swayed me against or for Illinois. My plan was to go to the cheapest school I was accepted to regardless of any other factor. I HEAVILY SUGGEST you not pick your school based on their testing scheme. Grades are not the main reason people don't graduate on time or fail out of vet school. The vast majority of students would probably do pretty okay at any school.