Last week, many seniors seemed to disappear as they holed up in Frost or Keefe Libraries to pore over class notes from as long ago as freshman year. They were preparing for their comprehensive examinations (comps), a mandatory graduation requirement for nearly half of the College's majors. However, comps are by no means a standard practice at the College-certain departments require an essay of anywhere from 5-10 pages instead, some have specific courses that allow students to get out of comps entirely, and other departments require nothing beyond the classes required of the major.

Standardization is one of the problems plaguing Amherst's comprehensive exam system, but there are others, too. For one thing, the timing of many of them is inopportune-shopping period is impossible to navigate while studying rigorously.

In addition, the nature of the tests themselves-difficult enough to require studying, but designed so that a student can merely cram for them-is another problem with comps. They measure test-taking and cramming skills or the ability to think quickly in an essay test, rather than the skills of imaginative thinking and creative problem-solving that Amherst classes cultivate. At a college that prides itself on teaching students how to think, putting such emphasis on one exam seems a nonsensical policy decision.

Some comps ask students to apply their knowledge by writing about a specific book read outside of class or by analyzing a new piece of music, and while this type of exam or paper has more merit, it still seems to lack purpose. Shouldn't a student's performance in the eight or 10 classes taken over the past 3.5 years be enough to prove that he or she deserves to receive a degree from that department? Are we testing the departments or the students? Moreover, if a department is concerned that a student with an A, B or C average in the major is not average or above in that area, isn't grade inflation what's truly at issue?

Comps do put a proverbial period on one's academic career at Amherst, and if students feel that to eliminate comps would be to compromise this pulling together of material, we encourage them to write theses or to pursue a special topics course instead. A thesis or special topics course requires extended work over the course of a year or a semester in an area in which a student truly has interest-a much more valuable review and application of the past few years of work.

Comprehensive examinations or brief retrospective essays have no place at Amherst. We simply don't see their point and find them to be a waste of time for both faculty and students.