are two-hour testing blocks strange?

[univscience]

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i go to a small, private pharmacy school. for big classes like bio and chem we have blocks every week designated for testing. rather than taking tests in class, we have a two-hour block for one test every week.

i never thought of it until a recent article topic for a paper. is this type of test scheduling sort of uncommon? the idea for the topic was that two hour tests are more stressful and affect performance.

 

[bbabul01]

I had chem exams that were 3-4 hour time blocks. You'd get your regular hour for class (8-9am) plus like 2 hours before that. So the exam would start at 6am.

Talk about stressful.

 

[DrBowtie]

The only time we have those are for final exams at the end of the semester. Each class has a set 2.5 hour block for their exam.

 

[MattD]

i go to a small, private pharmacy school. for big classes like bio and chem we have blocks every week designated for testing. rather than taking tests in class, we have a two-hour block for one test every week.

i never thought of it until a recent article topic for a paper. is this type of test scheduling sort of uncommon? the idea for the topic was that two hour tests are more stressful and affect performance.

If two hour tests stress you out and affect your performance, you could always enforce a 1 hour time limit for yourself on these tests. Maybe that would help?

 

[degoo_]

I had chem exams that were 3-4 hour time blocks. You'd get your regular hour for class (8-9am) plus like 2 hours before that. So the exam would start at 6am.

Talk about stressful.

I could see a possible advantage in this: Most students will be staying up all night anyways, and so having a test earlier 1. reduces the time they'll spend reviewing the minutiae they've gone over 20 times already 2. almost eliminates the notion of "I can get 1 hour of sleep in before the test" which can mess you up worse than just staying up the entire night, or risk you not walking up at all, and 3. if you don't have class after that, you actually get to sleep sooner.