Band 7.5 IELTS Essay Sample | The Formal Pen And Paper Tests Are Not Very Effective
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Many people believe that formal “pen and paper” examinations are not the best method of assessing educational achievement. Discuss this view and give your own opinion.
Band 7.5 IELTS essay sample
In most countries across the world, many people believe that a pen and paper based test is one of the best indicators of a student’s academic excellence. This is, however, the most stereo-typical way of judging the students’ ability. In the following paragraphs, I would like to explain why this is an inefficient way of assessing educational achievement.
First, each person has different skills and capabilities. Pen and paper examinations cannot assess various aspects of a student’s abilities. Some students might be good at taking a test with “pen and paper”, but some are better at presenting their ideas orally. If only a written examination is used to assess them, they will certainly fail.
Second, the materials prepared by teachers may not be objective and/or correct. A recent study conducted by Tokyo University found out that some of the typical questions made by teachers can be interpreted differently in other countries. This indicates that not all of the questions made for the paper test are always true and absolutely right.
Third, some students feel extreme nervousness when taking a paper test and this could result in poor performance. Some people just cannot get used to this type of examination, and therefore most of the time they fail in it.
To sum up, every student has a different way of expressing their knowledge. I would like to recommend that a variety of test formats should be used to assess students. Moreover, teachers need to find out what type of test is suitable for each student.
Band 7.5 Essay Sample 2
Here is another essay on the same topic:
Traditional paper based tests are no longer considered as the most suitable / effective way to evaluate academic performance or grades. I agree with the argument that writing based tests are able to assess what students learn in a year. This essay will discuss why it is not possible to evaluate a student’s creativity and other aspects of achievement using written examinations.
The formal test does not evaluate all aspects of learning such as speaking and communication skill. In school, many teachers give students lectures about how to effectively express their thoughts verbally because this is a crucial skill in real world. In 2014, the Korean Times reported that the score which students got in writing exams is irrelevant to promotion.
The traditional exam is also unable to test how creative the examinees are because of its nature of format. As writing tests focus on question and answer form, it is really rare that an examinee answers beyond what the examiner expects. In August 2016, the Korean Educational Association released a research paper which claimed that the nations whose test format is not formal has 10% higher mark in the Creative Index than the nations whose tests are traditional.
In conclusion, written exams are not the most superior way of evaluating what was learned during the course because these types of tests do not evaluate other aspects or learning or creativity that is out of boundary of the tests. It is recommended that other formats of exams are also included in the evaluation process.
