Open Book examinations are very common in this modern era. In this type of examination system, students are allowed to refer to their books and notes to look for answers to the questions. Open books exams are of two types: 

1. Restricted 

2. Free type

In restricted open book exams, students can only bring those books and materials approved by the authorities. 

While in free type open book exams, students can bring whatever material and books with them to use as a reference. 

Students think that they have good fortune as they got to give their exams by looking into books and notes but it’s not like that. The open book exams are quite challenging. Question papers are set in a very intellectual way that requires hold in a concept in a practical way. In the free type of open-book exams, teachers themselves create questions in a way so that the answers cannot be encountered in the texts or any material. They demand students to utilize their intellectual consciousness to solve those questions. 

Impact on learning strategies 

Some students just learn topics without actually understanding them for traditional exams. But open book examinations encourage students to not even learn concepts but to understand them as well and apply them in practical situations. Only then you will be able to solve questions in exams. 

The lineage of forcefully learning things in order to get marks should be broken. Things that are learned by heart with pleasure are believed to be retained better. This concept is being promoted by open book exams. 

Impact on Teaching strategies

Since students are required to prepare in a different way, teaching methodologies should witness some modifications that will benefit students. Instead of giving notes, the class should be interactive with full of discussions and questions. The motive of teachers should be training young minds in specific analytical and intellectual skills. Teachers should develop techniques so as to trigger the mental growth of students. 

The lineage of Traditional Exams 

Traditional exams or close book exams involve students completely use their brains for writing answers in examinations. They cannot refer to any texts or material except their question paper. These examinations are general theory based which is far away from the practical world. Most of the question papers lack practical questions that involve analytical skills. This is the disadvantage of traditional exams over open book exams. The questions in the examination can be found in any of the books which any student might have encountered while preparing.

Which system has more efficiency? 

Traditional exams are being carried on for decades which has started to gain competence and with some modification according to time, it is still preferred by the majority of universities and educational institutions. Although, for open book exams, some teachers fail to develop questions that require high analytical skills. Some of the teachers lack effective teaching techniques for open book exams. Even some students are unfamiliar with the type of questions they are going to face in open book exams. This creates a sense of confounding of what to learn. They are not able to prepare themselves in a prolific way. So, open-book exams can become the choice of many institutions if the matter addressed above can be resolved.