Toward Easier Exams

Reading Period, Harvard's unique cramming gimmick, will open inauspiciously tomorrow. For many, only the longer morning slumber hours will mark its advent. Others' dreams may be marred, however, by the examination specter and visions of three-hour sessions over blue books in sultry classrooms. Although the examination itself is a necessary evil in the large university, its procedure here seems to be the University's unique anachronism in the Machine Age. The Administration has repeatedly resisted any attempts to make exam-taking less tedious by allowing skilled students to type their examinations in special rooms.

Many an undergraduate-accustomed to doing his thinking at the typewriter-finds it hard to express his thoughts coherently on written blue book pages. During the lengthy process of writing his answers in longhand, the student who is used to seeing his thoughts typed out before him loses many ideas before he can get them down on paper.

Not the least among the blessed, were such an innovation to be made, would be the grader, who perennially complains about student penmanship.

Exam typing has worked very successfully at Yale, Princeton, and the Harvard Law School for several years. They have easily overcome the only reasons which the Administration can offer for not permitting typing here-space problems and administrative difficulties. Although lack of desk facilities would prohibit typing in many halls, the largest examination room of all-Memorial Hall-could handle just as many typing students on its long tables as those who presently write. Possibly this one hall might handle all the College typers. By posting advance sign-up sheets for students interested in typing their exams, the Registrar could judge the amount of space required ahead of time, and make the proper adjustments. Examination period is long and tense enough in the midst of a Cambridge spring. This simple step for making test-taking easier should be adopted without further delay.