The Testing Center Disaster

Finals are rapidly approaching and you, as a student, find yourself spending several agonizing hours within the thick walls of the Brigham Young University Testing Center. Convenient as the Testing Center is, the most overlooked problem to what seems a flawless building is the physiological games it plays on the individuals testing there. For instance, the exam period starts and you as a student are focused in on your final that could make or break your grade in the class. As you read the questions to your exam, you notice in your peripheral vision individuals rampaging through the testing center. Then you hear an army of people shifting in there seats, blowing there noise, coughing. To top off the chaos, Testing Center Supervisors are lurking behind every corner like lions waiting for prey on the students. Although these noises and distractions seem minor, in a building with a holding capacity of 650 people, the accumulated noise makes it difficult to concentrate. The Testing Center needs to distribute the students into small classroom surroundings so each individual within the room is given the best chance to perform at their up most potential.
Moving this large institution into smaller sections is largely beneficial for the students. With a smaller classroom type setting, students are capable of sitting down and completing an exam from start to finish with very minimal distractions. Many may think that the noise factor is unavoidable. It’s true that students taking exams are prone to making noise without the realization of the sounds they are creating. In a Testing Center that holds fewer students, the inevitable sounds from other students are minimized by the smaller capacity of students within the section. For example, say a student has the common cold and is coughing constantly during an exam. Now picture 200 students in an exam with the common cold are coughing. Noise in numbers can exponentially make a difference.
In addition to the exam noise, student traffic flowing in and out of the building can be extremely loud. As one sits down to take an exam, students, usually freshmen, come stumbling in through the doors with a look of a deer in headlights. The individuals coming in during an exam would be less noticeable if the number of students coming in and out of the doors was subtracted. With less students entering and exiting from the room, it gives a much better chance for students testing a better opportunity to concentrate. By avoiding large groups of student traffic, you’re dodging the amount of noise that enters into the Testing Centers.
Another way in which sectioning the Testing Center is beneficial is the convenience it puts on the students. By partitioning the building into sections, students can take exams in a classroom that holds the course or major in which they are taking. In this matter the student is able to become familiar with the test setting. With familiarity, the student can create a comfort level and can relax on the exam at hand instead of the gazing through a multitude of test takers. With a smaller section, a student can test in a more welcome environment.
This idea not only works for the students, but also for the supervisors working in the Testing Center. As you take test sometimes it feels like there are warm gusts of air going down your neck. Without really noticing, you ignore it and continue on with there exam. That warm gust of wind you feel on your back is the breath of an employee slipping from test taker to test taker in an uncomfortable fashion trying to catch individuals cheating. With smaller sectioned Testing Centers, supervisors can look at the examiners all at once. With a small number, the employees wouldn’t have to worry about trotting through the center looking for cheaters. Instead they can see in plain sight all those examining and if it comes to it, cheaters.
To create so many building might be extremely costly to some of those thinking that a project like this is not accomplishable. There is an alternative that makes a simple solution to such a development. To put sliding walls within the standing Testing Center now. This way the room can be cut off into smaller sections by folding walls and no major reconstruction is necessary. Also the cost of these types of dividers is substantially cheaper then putting in cement walls. By just adding a dollar to late fees around campus the funds can be produced to meet a quota for a building in a fast pace fashion. This makes it very possible to within the next couple years to undergo this project to benefit all those affiliated with the Testing Center.
The Testing Center can only be utilized to its full potential if students were given the proper examination environment. Without the proper examination atmosphere the model of the Testing Center is invalid. In more instances the students are worse off in the Testing Center then in the classroom. The clatter of noise that escalates from such a structure can and usually does end in a horrific test taking experience. Combined with a constant flow of traffic from the doors and the secret agent spying employees, test takers end up more agitated then if they were taking the test within the normal classroom during a lecture day. By separating the Brigham Young University Testing Center into smaller sections, students will have the potential to perform on examinations in the proper way examinations were created to be taken in.