Blue Books are the books that students use to complete their tests in college.
It is a book that contains 20 line pages used by high school and college students. Sometimes, it is even used by master students to answer test questions.
The price of a blue book is round $20. The cover of the book contains names such as “Blue Book: Examination Book” or “Blue Book: Exams“. A blue book comprises of few blank spaces for the students to fill up details such as the name of the class, instructor name, section, date, and subject.
Most of the time, blue book exams are offered in the courses that include subjects such as history, political science, English, economics and social science.
Do colleges still use Blue Books?
Yes, they use them. The reason for using blue books in colleges is to manage the written tests in an easy way. However, some colleges are still trying to supervise these tests without them. Besides offering an advantage to the students, a blue book provides convenience to the college professors.
Although the students can carry a few notebook papers with them, it would only make managing the answer sheets more difficult. Moreover, it would also be problematic for the professor to track the student details and organize them in the best way possible.
However, if a student carries a blue book, it would reduce the difficulties in managing and tracking the student answer sheets. Here, the professor would need to track a single book from each student, making their job easier.
Another disadvantage of not using a blue book is that the loose paper can sometimes get detached from the main paper. This would lead the professor to waste a lot of energy and time finding the correct answer sheet.
Why is it called a Blue Book?
This invention nearly date back to the 1850s. Harvard University started the rule of written exams in the 1850s, but in 1857, the institution started the rule of written tests for all subjects. During this time, the institution also offered the students written exams in blank exam books since the paper price was a bit costly at that time.
This innovative idea of providing exam books to the students spread like wildfire to other universities and colleges.
Yale University started using exam booklets for its students in 1865, along with other universities. Slowly, back in 1900, almost every university or college started using blue books for higher learning in various parts of the country.
Although, the idea of blue books originated in Butler University in the late 1920s and it was printed in blue color by Lesh Paper Company and since then, the blue book has blue color in it.
How many words are in a Blue Book?
One page of a blue book can contain approximately 250 words. However, most of the publishers focus on printing 300 words per page.