this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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Remove time limits on tests entirely.
Never have I ever felt like if I had more time on a test I could have gotten a different result, because every test I've ever done in my life I completed the entire paper inside the time limit. The time limit never prevented me from answering anything, so it may as well not exist. I would have answered everything just the same, giving me more time wouldn't change any of my answers at all. At best it might make me correct a small error, oversight, or in the case of English tests a spelling/grammatical error, maybe. But if everyone gets time to make these corrections, nobody is advantaged or disadvantaged.
The time limits are arbitrary unnecessary nonsense and removing them would remove the ability to attack people over them.
I was never able to complete most exams at university in time because I was too elaborate with my answers. Time limits are obviously necessary because you need to collect it at some point and can't keep supervisors there forever, but I don't see the point in making them so restrictive that some people can't answer all questions in time.
That's really only a problem for tests that are less about right/wrong answers and instead have some sort of art to them, like English, Literature, etc. For sciences, maths, and all the things where there's an objectively right answer you're either doing it right or you're not. None of those need time limits. People either know the answers and the method to get to them, or they don't.
STEM exams can have partial grades based on the completeness of your answer. They were rarely simple right/wrong multiple choice tests. And it was those where I ran out of time, and I hated the fact that I didn't even get to answer some questions because of this fact.
Edit: And some exams deliberately had more tasks in them than what could reasonably be answered in time, so you had to optimize by seeking out the high scoring questions first.
The more I think about it, the more I realize just how much of my higher education was only about gaming the system and not actually learning anything.
Testing should be standardized and done in a testing center on campus, not proctored by each professor. It has numerous benefits:
For all the money my university spent on Vice Chancellors for Supporting Israel and whatever, setting up a centralized testing center would have actually improved everyone's lives and the quality of education.
My high school was based around this idea of student independence and was set up a lot more like a post-secondary institution than many high schools (probably better "college prep" than a lot of hyper restrictive cram institutions that advertise themselves as such), and we had a testing center! Things were all set up for "go at your own pace", so they couldn't be having subject teachers proctoring exams whenever one kid got to that point in the course, so instead they had a centralized testing center where you could book an appointment ahead, or walk in anytime prior to the final hour of the day. It was great. Tests were held in one specific place, which was really helpful for getting into the right mindset to take a test.
exactly one time i would've benefitted from more time on a test, and it was a test question on a unit we didn't get to in class, but i might have been able to work it out from first principles if i had all day instead of a couple hours (and assuming i cared enough to try, which i recall not being the case at the time).
Right so you get where I'm coming from! These test timers are not necessary. We're just adding stress for no gain. The only reasonable argument for them is that there are a lot of tests to do and they don't want to spend too long on them but I'm convinced 95%+ people will finish the tests in a reasonable time and quietly leave one by one.
i suppose there's an implicit time limit on regular tests in secondary school because there's another class using the room in an hour but you can just Scotty it and give students that hour to do a test you expect to take 20 minutes..
Or just let some students stay seated and run over into the next one. As long as people are silent entering and exiting the hall does it matter if different tests are overlapping? If there is no time limit on the tests then the minor disturbance of new testers coming in is less intrusive as that disturbance doesn't actually cost the tester any time against a limit.
ah i meant a situation where the incoming class is a lecture or whatever normal instruction
Ahh i've not really got experience with that, all our testing is done in gym halls. Never classrooms.