It never made sense to me because it is apparent that this practice could cause so many problems, especially as exams accumulate over the years, e.g. leading to inflated grades. I do not exclude myself from this practice.
As an example, in one of the classes, I knew only a small number of students had access to an exam around that was given around 5 years ago (literally gotten through one of the student's relatives who took the exams years before), and one of the question from that past exam was very similar to another one that was given in the actual exam. This doesn't seem very fair to me.
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Finally, I always felt that my work was delegitimized with access to these resources, and over the year sort of adopted a pessimistic view on learning and knowledge, seeing that so many of my peers became arrogant and prideful despite having had access to these external resources. It was not until I did grad school much later on (where past exams are virtually non-existent) did I "let go" of those feelings and regain a bit of confidence in my own capabilities.
Some professors realize this and take action accordingly, not reusing questions, or not using enough of them to matter substantially. Others think, probably mistakenly, that they can set rules forbidding the use of such "resources". The rules will be broken by at least some of the students. I don't know of any effective way to actually prevent access to old questions. So, just assume that they are available.
My own opinion is that the professor should just assume that it will happen and, if they want to make the test taking "fair" will make old exams available for study. Some even go so far as to give out the final exam on the first day of class, to be taken later, though I suspect that not many do that.
Of course, coming up with new questions each term/year adds a bit of work, but if the course is so "stagnant" that an exam from a few years ago is still being reused then the prof needs to do a better job.
It is true that some of my own colleagues have "criticized" my composition of PhD Written Prelims by observing that there is no secret about the general scope of the questions on the exam, so, "gosh, people can study the stuff and then everyone passes!?!" Um, well, if you tell people what you want them to know, and if they can demonstrate that they know it... and can do things with it... what is the problem?
... do we need to have a significant number of "failures" to prove that "non-failing" is significant? I'd say "no", but quite a few people would say "yes". This becomes perverse when we have a stringent admissions system, so that really everyone admitted to our grad program is capable of doing a PhD. See what I mean?
If it bothers you that a small group of students had access to previous exams then you should understand that a professor is giving all students a fair opportunity by posting previous exams. If a bad student with access to unauthorized past exams gets the same score as a good student with lecture notes only, then there is a problem. If both have access to past exams then the better student will prevail. The point is that cheaters wont stop looking for shortcuts so the best option is to remove that option by making them available to everyone, but write exams that require thinking not memorizing.
Also I find it unusual that you are in STEM, but feel pessimistic about learning. I am trained in engineering and we were given past exams and dedicted tutorial sessions to do practise problems yet only a handful of students got higher than an A and many got Cs. It's so easy to twist an old problem that can't be solved by memory.
Being in a STEM field, I am sure you're familiar with extremely difficult examinations such as the Putnam exam and International Olympiads in Math and Physics. These definitely are exams, even though they're called "competitions". They all share the feature of having open access to all past year questions - solutions, often with multiple methods, are also posted online with alacrity by various enthusiasts.
Why, then, isn't everyone doing fantastically well in these exams? The answer is that the exams are of a sufficient level of difficulty and also set with sufficient creativity and originality (to distinguish them from the previous years' questions) that it's not at all trivial to just practice old papers and hope to ace the new one within strict time controls.
And that's your answer - if your exam was challenging and original enough, you wouldn't have to worry about students having access to questions from previous years. In fact, it's almost imperative that you give them that access, so that they can be prepared for an exam of that difficulty.
Of course, "standard" exams are not designed to be as challenging as competition or olympiad problems, but the same general principle applies. There are also other considerations - students will often create and distribute their own informal past year question "banks" as hand-me-downs, maybe even sell them to their juniors. These practices will make it almost impossible for you to ensure an even playing field for your students since some will have more access than others to previous questions. So, it's actually more equitable for you to simply make all your previous exam questions open to all and just focus on setting a new exam that's interesting and challenging without obvious repetition of any of your old material.
As others have explained, there are nuances to any question that the examiner might not even be aware of. Local academic culture, implicit biases and assumptions, the level and scope of a specific course. A student hoping to do well on a test has to take all of these into account. However, these details are usually not what you're testing for. You want to know whether a student understood and memorized the subject matter, not if they remember which notation a specific professor prefers.
The more noise you introduce into an exam, the more effort is required from your students (if they want to do well) to mitigate its efffects. "Secret" tests are especially noisy because the student, by design, cannot know which aspects of the course material will become relevant. This includes things only tangentially related to the subject matter.
Did the professor choose axiom X on purpose or can I also use the more generally applicable Y? They mentioned Y in a lecture, but didn't go into detail. Do they always use this notation or only in special cases?
In my experience, this often leads to last minute "cramming": immersing yourself in the course material and (indiscriminately) memorizing as much as possible shortly before the exam. This allows the student to guess secondary details ("in this kind of question, we used axiom X, but we didn't cover Y so that's probably out of scope") more easily since they're fresh in their mind. However it is usually not a good learning technique. It is something students adopt to cope with the uncertainties that come with the test method*.
You can reduce noise by exposing students to the types of question, the expected scope of the exam and the answer style you expect throughout the course. Letting them practice on old (or mock) exams will allow them to test their knowledge, assimilate the cultural details over time and concentrate on understanding the subject they're actually supposed to study.
Congratulations, you have made your students more successful by allowing them to prepare better. This is a good thing. If you feel that the exam is too easy now, add more challenging content. You'll produce more competent graduates.
Caveat: This line of reasoning assumes that you prepare a "fresh" exam each time and that it is reasonably well designed to test for understanding of the subject matter in the first place. Reusing previous questions with minimal changes will defeat the purpose.
Instead, professors should make exams that actually measure the students' understanding of the subject, rather than their ability to memorize previously posed questions. If a student can pass an exam by just copy-pasting answers from previous one, I'd say it's the professor's fault rather than the student's.
So, yes. As many other answers have pointed out, "exam banks" will appear whether you like it or not, so maybe it is a good idea to make past exams public so that everyone plays by the same rules. Reusing questions is, in my honest opinion, a very bad practice
There are implicit differences across fields, examiners and countries. It is not fair to test students on knowledge without them knowing precisely what you're asking. No matter how specific you think an exam's questions may be, there will be certain expectations which have not been laid out.
I came from a physics/mathematics background but studied some softer science subjects and really struggled with some exams because I answered in the wrong style. What was technically correct was not necessarily what was being asked.
Do you give a specific example, referring to two named species? Does this question refer to a mutualistic, commensalistic or parasitic relationship? This was covered in the class, should I use the example given in the lectures? Do I need to include a specific definition of symbiosis or can I just write two species?
You might happen to know the answer off-hand; is it ok to just write that? Is some working expected? Do I need to write it as a sum or can I just write the first few terms? How many terms of the sequence are needed?
At my university in Sweden it is common practice to have previous exams available. I would almost like to state that they are required to due to the university's rules, but I am unsure about this; I strongly seem to remember reading something like it once.
I can let you know that the passing rate is not increased at all due to this; there are still the "Moby Dicks" of courses around there, gathering some 70% fail rate each year. As someone else said, it is good to know what is expected of you. 152ee80cbc
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