Before you furiously copy your thoughts onto your final exams, your professors put their own thought into writing them.

Professors say they write new exams every semester, instead of reusing old ones.

“If you give the same test every year, you’re not testing students on [what they know]; you’re testing them on their connections with other students,” said Daniel Grubb, associate professor of mathematical sciences.

Grubb said he changes his tests every year. Every once in a long while, he uses a previous test for a makeup exam, he said.

“It just seems more fair to the students who are actually taking the class to give exams that nobody else has seen before.”

Political science professor Dwight King teaches a course on international political affairs. He said he doesn’t reuse his tests because the material he teaches constantly changes.

“I never teach the same way twice,” King said.

History professor Michael Gonzales said he tries to come up with new questions to make his exams fresh each semester. However, sometimes he finds it necessary to cover the same class material on tests.

“I give my students a list of possible questions before my test,” Gonzales said.

Only some of the possible questions actually are included in the test.

However, Gonzales assigns the extra questions so that his students learn more from the class.

“I sometimes repeat particular questions,” said George Spencer, chair of the history department.

Spencer said he often uses essay questions from previous exams; however, his exams as a whole are not the same as previous exams.

“Certain things that I cover in my courses tend to be particularly important, so if I used certain questions only once, I’d be resorting to pretty obscure questions,” Spencer said.

He generally picks from a pool of about 20 previously-prepared essay questions and uses them in different combinations on his exams.

Marneshia Hiner, a senior FCNS child development major, said she would prefer that teachers reuse their exams because it would be easier to study from.

“In previous classes that I had, they reused them,” Hiner said.

However, she said students might be inclined to get copies of the test from former students, and wouldn’t study as hard as they should. Hiner said teachers probably reuse tests because it’s easier.

“I think it depends on how the class is doing,” sophomore marketing major Stephen Riedel said.

He said teachers may alter a test to make it simpler if the class is having a hard time learning the material.

Junior psychology major Cortez Lewis said probably only a few teachers reuse their tests.

“In one way it would make it easier for students to cheat if they didn’t rewrite it,” Cortez said.

He said he would prefer that teachers rewrite their tests because then the old tests could be made available as a study guide for students.