system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I don't think anyone should get extra time in an exam. CMV.

This may not exist in some exams, but in the high school exams that I took (the IB), some students were allowed extra time for things such as: dyslexia, ADD, etc. Now before you think I'm a complete ass for essentially harming people with those conditions' future by not allowing them to perform to the "best" of their abilities (quotations will be explained later), here are my reasons for thinking as such:

In my view, an exam should assess a person's ability to absorb and process information in a manner suitable for the exam (for example: in math or physics exam, to be able to solve problems quickly and correctly). I think the exam should be used to distinguish between candidates for university, or a career. As such, I think that the time allocated is a rather large factor: if you have more time to absorb or process the information, you may eventually get it. But the point is to distinguish between person A and person B for a position. 

Given an infinite amount of time, I would say more people would be able to get 100% on an exam, which then defeats the purpose of taking one unless your aim was just to have a confidence booster.

Now, I also think that when applying (let's take the example of applying to university), these conditions should be considered: the admissions officer should know that your exam result may not be completely reflective of what you could do given a lot more time. But in the context of an exam, I don't think its about measuring your best abilities when given infinite time. The rate at which a student can absorb and process the information should be compared. This is why I put quotations around ""best" of their abilities". Of course they could do better with more time, but so can everyone (a generalization, I know: I recognize that I cannot say that all can answer every question correctly in an exam). 

Now the reason I care is that the exams are graded on a curve. If you compensate for a student's difficulty in reading by providing them extra time to raise their grade, it will (if enough are given more time) affect everyone's grade. It also doesn't tell the admissions officer what you can do in the time given normally in an exam, compared to another student. It defeats the purpose (in my opinion) of a standardized exam. 

As well as this, I am a little skeptical as to the ability of the examiner to determine exactly how much more time would make the exam "fair".


Yes, it sucks that a person has this condition. Yes, I think it should be compensated for, or at least considered. No, I do not think that giving extra time in a standardized exam graded on a curve is the way to do so. I think it's like having a race between Pistorius and Bolt on the 100m, and giving Pistorius extra time. Then, taking that result into account as an average to determine who is the fastest runner. Again, I'm sorry for Pistorius to have a natural disadvantage (although I do not claim to be an expert in whether this provides disadvantages but I just compared best running times), but I don't think he should be given extra time due to his condition. 

TL;DR: I think extra time in an exam is like giving a legless man a head start in a race with Usain bolt until he almost beats him, then considering this a good comparison. 


PS: Let me know if my explanation isn't that good, or is missing some logical connectors. I'll try and clear it up to show exactly what I think.


Edit 1: Wow this has become bigger than I expected! Thanks so much for all the contributions: it's fascinating to read these comments. A common theme I'm seeing among the answers is now the disagreement on what exams test (which I should have clarified earlier): Some, like Sabazius, Dr_Wreck, and sarcasmandsocialism, seem to say that exams usually should not include how fast you can answer, or rather, as Sabazius said "the quality being tested was a student's ability to perform in a given amount of time". I actually do think so. In this case, as many explained better than me: the condition does affect a part of the aptitude being tested. So giving extra time does not level the playing field, but rather distorts results (which was what I tried to explain earlier). In this case, how does my opinion hold up?

Edit 1.5 (super quick added edit): Another thing I've noticed is people pointing out that I seem to be not thinking outside of the school world, and not taking into account the fact that exams aren't perfect for demonstrating how good someone would be in the real world. This is partly true (I do sometimes get a little stuck in the school world) but I also think that exams both do a fairly good job at emulating the real world in a period of time, and at the moment seems to be the only viable way to compare aptitude(and realistic: ideally one would interview each person for a long time to figure out how apt they are but that's a bit time consuming/expensive). Yes, they aren't perfect, but I don't think that extra time improves the system.
gpt
The primary purpose of testing is to see if a student understands something, *not* to see which student can answer fastest. If a student has dyslexia and takes a long time to understand the questions, limiting them on time means that the test is no longer measuring their subject comprehension, it is measuring their reading speed.

The reality is that subject comprehension is far more valuable for most jobs than the ability to provide written answers to standardized, written questions while sitting still for a specific amount of time.  In real life, there are many ways students with ADHD or dyslexia can adjust their environment to increase their productivity, but those are impossible in the artificially controlled testing environment.

tl;dr Tests should primarily measure subject comprehension, not the ability to take a written test.