MBA exam

A week ago on Wednesday I encountered a somewhat new format for the final exam in my MBA pursuit. Usually, if it was not multiple choice, the exams  had a requirement to write a short answer.  If it was  a longer narrative required, then it was usually done through the final research paper or a case write up done at home. I kind of got familiar and used to these distinctions in final exams formats.

However on my final exam in Managing Human Capital course it was quite a bit different. We had two mini cases, one on recruitment and candidate selection, the other on employees’ compensation. Each case had two questions. Professor gave us the printout of the cases with questions,  and a notebook. That notebook part was intriguing to me. I have not had those before in any of my MBA exams in the past. The notebook had probably 16-20 pages. We were told to write our answers to the questions in them.

I read both cases upfront just to size up the task and pace myself for the assignment, and then got down to writing the exam. After two or three pages answering the first question, and it was not done yet, I just realized that professor did not tell us how long should be the answers. Usually for any kind of at home  written assignment we were given some space guidance/constraints. For example, write a short research paper ten pages double spaced. So I came to professor to ask how long the answers should be. She shrugged her shoulders and whispered back it could be whatever length. 

That was not much of an answer to my question. So I got back and continued to work on the answers. The first sign that something was  “wrong” came when I saw the first student turn her paper in and leave the class. I just hardly started with the second question of the first case at that point! I realized that probably my answers are too long. Still I decided that since we are given two and a half hours and a whole notebook, I probably would try to use most of it.

From that point I tried to make sure my answers were bit less verbose. By the time I got to the second case about one third of the class had already turned their papers in. All in all I took a bit over two hours to write the exam. By the time I was done there were just about 5-7 people out of 50 still writing their responses.

After I turned in my exam to professor I had some questions in regards to assignments and grading during the course. She stepped out from the class with me to answer the questions. After clearing my concerns, I asked her again what was the expectation for the length of the answers on the exam. She told me something I did not know. Turned out this format for written exams, when you are given the questions and time constraints without any limit on the actual answer is a common practice in law schools. You can write as much or as little as you deem necessary within the given time. What did I know, I have not been to a law school! I think this format would do very well with students from China, when they write “everything that crosses their mind”, as I learned from my group mates from China  in Managerial Accounting study group earlier this term.

Ultimately I think it was better to write more rather than less anyways. So this was my mini introduction to the law school exam routine. Interesting stuff indeed. Needless to say, my hand was aching after two hours of straight writing. I just hope that I got the answers right too, and the pain was worth it .

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