The books that are used by students to complete the test is referred to as a blue book in college. It is a book that contains 20 line pages used by high school students, college students. Sometimes, it is even used by college graduates for answering test questions.
The students can pick any topic to write the answers and the length of the answers might differ such as in essay form or even a paragraph. The price of a blue book is not expensive and the cover of the book contains names such as, “Blue Book: Examination Book.
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, English literature, economics, and social science. Despite all this, blue book exams are sometimes scary for students.
Do colleges still use blue books?
Yes. The reason for using blue books in colleges is to manage the written tests, however, some colleges are still trying to supervise these tests without them. Besides offering an advantage to the students, a blue book offers convenience to the professors of the college.
Although the students can carry a few notebook papers with them, it would only increase the difficulties of the professor in managing the answer sheets. Moreover, it would also be problematic for the professor in tracking the student details and organizing them in the best way.
However, if a student carries a blue book, it would reduce the difficulties in managing, and tracking the answer sheets from the student. Here, the professor would need to track a single book from each student, making his/her job easier. Another disadvantage of not using a blue book is that sometimes the loose paper can get detached from the main paper. This would lead the professor in wasting a lot of energy and time in finding the correct answer sheet.
Why is it called a Blue Book?
Although, there is no enough evidence as to why the color of the blue book is blue, its inventions 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 price of paper was a bit costly at that time.
This innovative idea of providing exam books to the students spread a 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. The blue color was the original cover of Butler University, and since then the blue book has blue color in it.
How many words are in a Blue Book?
It depends on the number of chapters it covers. One page of a blue book can contain approximately 250 words, and this is equal to one page in a blue book. However, most of the publishers focus on printing 300 words per page. The thumb rule that the students should follow is to write one page in a blue book.
Moreover, in practice, a student should write a paragraph that contains a minimum of 200-250 words for every answer.