Students shouldn’t be judged on their performance on one day when they might be ill. The exams might not be completely representative of the student’s skills as everyone can have a bad day.
They are a poor method of assessment as they don’t reflect the use of knowledge in a practical environment. They don’t reflect how well you’ll be able to use your knowledge in real world occupations.
Many successful individuals are bad at exams but can perform well under other methods of assessment such as essays and oral presentations which still prepare students in coping with pressure. Some people would argue that exams are not a fair assessment of intelligence and aren’t favourable to those with poor memory skills, those who suffer under pressure, and those who get so nervous in such situations that they shut down in exams. It’s very easy to know content but to completely fail an exam because you are nervous. They aren’t an accurate representation of a student’s knowledge as some people are just better at taking exams than others. If you happen to mess up in your exams due to stress or panic then your goals can disintegrate leaving you unable to reach your full potential and having to settle for second best. SATs are taking the pleasure out of learning for many students and pressurising teachers to ‘teach the test’ rather than teaching for meaning, understanding, critical thinking and pleasure. Should schools become exam result factories or institutions which create well-rounded human beings? This problem must be addressed to reduce the number of pupils who suffer from forms of neurosis or depression due to this country’s narrow minded approach to education.
Those students cramming in last-minute study will have to put aside their social lives, have to sacrifice their sleep and will be under great pressure and tension. Coursework is also a problem when you have exams and should not collide with exam revision.
In humanity subjects such as History, Geography and social sciences, analysis and application of what has been learned is important and cannot be assessed through exams.
If exams were abolished then students would have more time to learn new material instead of being tested and revising. Testing can be performed in many other ways than a 3 hour exam which decides your fate. The vast majority of exams are based on the student’s ability to recall, in the space of 2 or 3 hours, details of a subject which is generally vast in its scope.
The vital point is that those students who enjoy greatest success are not necessarily those who have the best grasp of the subject, but most often those who have successfully anticipated the questions which will appear on the paper. This is, of course, not the only problem. Exams create unnecessary pressure and the poorly planned exam schedules only add to this. Who would deny that they would rather have 5 exams spread over 2 weeks rather than 5 exams in the space of 4 days, leaving little time to readjust? Furthermore, exams aren’t adequate preparation for working life and test only your memory of a subject rather than all-round knowledge that properly conceived coursework can afford. It is undoubtedly important to test knowledge as well as all round skills, but this can be done much more fairly through methods such as essays and the appropriate use of coursework than through the traditional hellish world of end-of-year exams.
Fairer forms of assessment include more coursework, oral presentation, continuous assessments throughout the year and term papers as well as project work.
Education should be more about what is drawn out of people that what is drummed into them and this is not done through examinations.
In modern day education, familiarity with word processing, desktop publishing and powerpoint is a valuable asset and whilst essays and oral presentations allow the student to demonstrate these skills, traditional exams require students to write essays with a pen and paper – a very unnatural endeavour in the 21st century.
Are exams a valid form of assessment of simply a memory test? You decide.
