Assessment methods at top 10 unis - movement away from traditional exams?

[Springflowers1]

Really interested in getting feedback and experiences on this for humanities/social sciences at top unis as DC2 is in yr12 and I think this is something we should be more aware of when evaluating options and comparing unis. For context DC1 is at Oxbridge doing an exam heavy essay subject with very little scope for coursework or other forms of assessment. First 2 years is all very stressful traditional exams and 3rd year is 3/4 traditional exams plus a dissertation or similar. Uni did do 5hr open book exams for a while after covid but reverted back to exam halls due to concerns about cutting and pasting of old essays and use of AI.

First time around I wasn't fully aware that so many other top unis now employed many diverse ways of assessing students and that often the majority of exams were open book eg 24hr ones?

Those of you with DC doing essay subjects at high ranking unis, how have they found these alternative modes of assessment, particularly 24hr open book exams? Does the removal of the need to memorise everything significantly reduce stress levels? It makes alot of sense to me - nothing in the world of work is about memorisation of vast amounts of information, but I know it's not straightforward because of issues with AI.

My post above was for @mscoach whom I intended to quote.

I apologise for the random formatting marks. I should not attempt to post in trying circs

Thanks. My dc did these types of questions in the 11+.

I'm a bit sick of everyone here glibly stating that all A levels simply require the regurgitation of facts. That is certainly not true for the two that I teach - I spend half my life telling students NOT to do this. It wasn't true for the ones my ds did either - though he did do a language so obviously needed to memorise a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structures. My younger ds is doing A levels now - different ones from those I teach and the ones his brother did. He is doing one which he says is a lot easier that the other two (biology and German) because 'You pretty much just need to learn the content.' He is aiming for A star in that and As in the other two, but that is one A level out of the six or so we know about between us.

I also don't understand why people think exams are 'just a memory test' as if there is no relationship at all between learning, understanding and memory. If I don't understand something, there is not a cat in hell's chance I will remember it, and that becomes more true as the rate of complexity increases in my experience. And the 'wrong kind of intelligence'? People I have known with academic ability (critical thinking skills, able to form interpretations etc) pretty much always have good memories.

In my degree our finals were 3 day long open-book exams, and they nearly killed me. I knew I wasn't supposed to spend three full days on them, but I drove myself mad procrastinating and starting again. I much prefer standard 3 hour exam to that hell.