Recently the students of the Bachelor of Psychology at the UvA have received an update on the examinations regulations. The students seem to be fine with most of the new changes, except for the change regarding not being able to go back and forth in the exam questions. It has been communicated to us that these measures are made in response to the actions of deceit and cheating from the minority of the Bachelor students, and the majority of the students were honest and truthful during the exams. We believe that this measure won’t combat cheating necessarily, but instead, it will create huge distress among the students. During exams, it is normal for students to forget something on the spot, so they naturally move on to the next questions, and when they remember the answer to the prior question, they go back to it and solve it. Also, many students like to plan their time ahead by overviewing all the questions in the beginning in order to manage their time accordingly. It is human nature to not be able to retrieve a piece of information instantly, and distress usually disrupts and disables the retrieval, thus, people will most likely give wrong or rushed answers to questions they actually know the answers to. We request the change of this measure. 

UvA Bachelor of Psychology Students