Several students entering lectures to take exams this midterm
season may be experiencing déjà vu after foraging through
a vast archive of past exam material.
On the first floor of the Student Activities Center sit two
large, gray file cabinets. When opened, they reveal a large
collection of several hundred old exams and material available to
anyone interested.
These exam files are not exclusive to the Student Activities
Center. A variety of organizations on campus provide members with
exam files that contain former midterms and finals from different
classes, a practice that many professors discourage and others
simply do not know about.
These exam files can be found at locations ranging from student
retention centers to fraternities and sororities to online files
for certain majors.
One exam file open to all students is located in the Community
Programs Office, home to several retention centers such as the
American Indian student retention group RAIN, the Chicana/o student
retention group MEChA Calmecac, and the African Student Union
Academic Support Program.
Any student can choose from an assortment of old exams or course
material from several subjects including political science,
Chicana/o studies, computer science, physics, electrical
engineering and several others.
With a valid student identification, students can come in to the
CPO and check out any of the material for a maximum of two
hours.
The exams in these files may date back to a class two years ago
or could be as recent as last quarter. The organizations obtain the
exams and study material from students who choose to donate
them.
Rida Hamida, an office intern at the CPO, said the exam files
serve to help students study.
“It helps provide students a concept of the exam
format,” Hamida said.
Knowing how to study and what to study for a certain class can
often be frustrating, Hamida said, adding that exam files help ease
that frustration by giving students an idea of what a professor
focuses on for an exam.
Sun Min Kim, scholarship chairman for Alpha Gamma Omega, said
his fraternity has an exam file but has not updated it recently. He
said he finds the online sources for exams more helpful.
Online postings of old exams are most common in the sciences
such as engineering, physics and chemistry. Students can look up
their class and search for old exams on file.
Assistant physics Professor Troy Carter is aware of this
practice and the exam files, saying he keeps it in mind when making
up new exams. He hands his exams back to students and intends them
to be used as study tools.
For professors who do not intend for their exams to get out,
exam files such as these may impose a fairness issue.
Physiological science Lecturer Christian Roberts was completely
unaware of the existence of these files, and said he now worries
that his exams are circulating around campus. Materials with
multiple choice questions for past health and fitness general
education courses, a subject Roberts now teaches, can be found in
the CPO files.
Roberts has never passed any of his exams back to students.
Instead, he posts sample questions online similar to those that may
appear on an exam.
“There’s probably a better chance that a midterm
copy from two quarters ago will have questions that will be on the
exam while those online will not,” Roberts said.
Some professors see these files as a valuable tool if used
appropriately and with permission of professors.
Roger Bohman, a molecular, cell and developmental biology
professor, said he knows his exams are in circulation, but it is
because he intends them to be so.
Bohman used to prevent exams from leaving the room, but in a
large lecture hall he said this proved to be difficult. Instead, he
decided to pass back all his exams and said he “flooded the
market.”
Still, Bohman sees the files as an issue because they encourage
students to memorize problems instead of learning the material. He
said he does change the order and emphasis of his exam
questions.
Some students argue that part of the blame for students misusing
old exams falls on professors.
“It’s the professor’s responsibility to change
the test if he cares enough to discourage an unfair advantage some
people might get,” said third-year electrical engineering
student Alex Rabinovich.
Students who view the files as a beneficial study option believe
they should be more openly publicized and accessible.
Joon Lee, a fourth-year applied math student, expressed
disappointment that he had previously been unaware of the files but
said he would have used them if he had known.
“When it’s publicly available, I don’t think
it’s dishonesty,” Lee said.