I agree very strongly that extra time is unnecessary provided the exam itself has been set correctly. As an ex academic I would consider myself to have failed to set a good exam if by dint of sitting in the exam room for a further 15 minutes say a student would do better. The exam should be designed to allow an average student to display their knowledge in the time set. No amount of extra time would be helpful either the student knew the material or not. Therefore allow as much extra time as possible so that students who work slowly are not disadvantaged, one exam per day for instance. This does raise the issue of how many exams are set per day in a given room, the only argument in favour of that is administrative only, you can set two exams in the same room per day.

 I argued with a medical school who were setting a 3 hour MCQ exam that certain students could be disadvantaged by this. I was told that students who knew their subject would finish in about an hour, most students would finish in 2 hours and only those needing the extra time might stay for 3 hours. Implicitly this exam guaranteed extra time to those who needed it.

One argument in favour of standard timed exams is that this is somehow intended to mimic the “real world”. I had an unexpected vociferous defence of the situation allowing extra time and even study materials in the exam by someone who was in the process of selling their house. The person put the view forward that whoever was dealing with their case should have as much time as possible to grasp any intricacies and they should not have to rely on memory but should check in text books if necessary. The person put the view forward that juggling in memory with say 12 subjects was not acceptable practice – damning the traditional set of year-end exams. I must say that in the “real world” I do not want, say motorway bridges, designed from memory only.

Time allowed for exams is spurious and the “real world” never depends solely on memory for any activity.

Isn’t it time now to question both timed examinations and the very nature of course work as a “real life” alternative.