An exam is of best benefit to the student if they can retain it. With a
test bank, even if I am not giving the complete exam again, there will be
questions that are worded in exactly the same way on subsequent exams and
after time a "test file" (exams kept by individuals and donated to a group
such as a sorority) will be available to the students with a large number
of questions that might be on my exams. I do not want to have to start
keeping their exams to prevent access to a "test file" being an unfair
advantage on one of my exams.
I believe that the purpose of exam is not to have the students repeat the
work they have already done but instead to be able to apply that work to
problems that, at least to the student, look new. Sometimes this means
simply rewording the directions they are used to from the text, sometimes
it means asking them a different application problem than they have seen
before, and sometimes it means presenting them with new material to see how
they can handle it. Even with a test bank, I would want to reword problems
each time.
Also, I hope that each semester I am growing as an instructor. One of the
ways that I hope I continue to grow is in how I give an exam. I believe
that a test file leads to stagnant exam practices.
I do have copies of my old exams and sometimes I peruse them for
interesting problems that I had forgotten about. Since almost all of my
exams have an essay question (one where the students give approximately a
page long response) I also keep the exams so that I can reword or change
the essay questions. So you see, I sort of keep a bank but for the purpose
of keeping things different, not the same.
Murphy
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