Question
There seems to an increasing trend towards assessing students through exams rather than
continuous assessment.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of exams as a form of assessment?
Answer
There is a lot debate over how to conduct student assessments in various educational facilities. The
traditional method is with examinations, but these days there is a lot of resistance to this, and many
teachers prefer less stressful and more representative modes of assessment. This essay will look at
the advantages and disadvantages of exams.
The advantages of exams are few and mainly focused on the institutions rather than the students.
Exams can be organized quite easily and conducted in a short period of time, as hundreds of
students can sit together in a room to do the test. These exams can then be marked conveniently,
sometimes even by a computer, without the hassle of many months of continual observation by
teachers.
However, traditional examinations are not the best means of assessing students in the majority of
subjects. They require a student’s total knowledge of a subject to be assessed over a single event,
which is itself an artificial construct, and requires enormous amounts of stress. The student needs to
study for a long time to go into an exam hall and demonstrate a year’s worth of knowledge. This is
unlikely to give a true representation of their expertise. Factors like anxiety can reduce their
performance, as well as bad luck, sickness, and so on. It is far better to test a student’s knowledge
over a longer period of time, in various ways, to get a more representative idea of their actual ability
in that subject. This form of continuous assessment could give a far more reliable impression of what
the student actually knows, rather than relying upon one single exam.
In conclusion, traditional examinations are not the best way of assessing students, and they should
be replaced by continuous assessment as this is more effective and reliable.
