There Seems To Be An Increasing Trend Towards Assessing Students Through Exams | Advantage Disadvantage IELTS Essay Sample
There seems to be an increasing trend towards assessing students through exams rather than through continual assessment. What are the advantages and disadvantages of exams as a form of assessment?
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Band 7.5 IELTS essay sample
There is no doubt that the academic knowledge of an individual has to be assessed in a well-defined way. It has been observed that assessing the performance of students by conducting exams is becoming more popular than assessing them continuously through various assignments. In this essay, we shall discuss the pros and cons of assessing students through examinations.
Firstly, exams function as an effective method to assess the knowledge levels of students). This is an advantage because, had they not been evaluated at every grade or class, it would have been impossible to know their capability levels. For example, NEET is an entrance examination, which analyses the student’s eligibility to pursue an MBBS degree, and students are provided with various majors depending on the range of marks received. Without this exam, it is not possible to filter out eligible candidates from among thousands of aspirants. Not only do exams assess the capabilities of a person, but they also provide people with universally accepted degrees.
On the other hand, conducting of examinations at regular intervals might be stressful to students due to various reasons. In short, there might be some emergency situations that force students to give the exam a miss. As a result, students have to repeat a year to get through a particular level. For instance, one of my friends had undergone a surgery during the final year of graduation examinations and could not take the annual tests. Therefore, she had to remain in the same class again while we graduated and found jobs. Conducting exams at the national level also requires a lot of money. The whole system needs to be maintained perfectly and this can reduce the amount of funding available for other areas. For instance, a Law university might be able to spend more money training the individuals, instead of maintaining an international standard law test.
In conclusion, exams are helpful to assess the student’s level and to provide an Internationally recognizable certificate. At the same time, having a rigid system might not be a better way to evaluate the knowledge of students. In my opinion, schools should complement formal exams with continual assessment to reduce the stress level of students and to give them more opportunities to prove their knowledge.
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