Title:

Exams often do little more than measure a person’s ability to take exams. Should exams be
outlawed in favor of another form of assessment?

Abstract:
Exams have their own advantages & disadvantages. Some people think of them as an effective &
reliable tool while others do not. Some argue that exams are necessary to test how well the students
have understood the topic. While others think of them as a useless & stressful part of the education
system. They are not required as they do not accurately measure knowledge, skills &
understanding. Everyone has their own perceptions & opinions regarding importance of exams.
Although everyone is different & has different skills but still we cannot eliminate exams from the
education system. Although exams might not be an accurate measure of intelligence but still exams
are important as it forces the student to study because otherwise they won’t get marks. Without
the concept of accountability people do not put in much efforts. Similarly without the presence of
exams, students would know & feel that they are not going to be tested so they won’t study &
would definitely not put in much efforts. Advantages & disadvantages of exams are discussed
through various reasoning & point of views. Everything in this world has some drawbacks & some
advantages as well, similarly Exams might be a traditional way but there are very less options
available. You cannot design a different exam for every student individually, keeping in mind their
strengths & weaknesses. This is a tough ask, is expensive & also time consuming. Checking such
an exam is also quite a difficult task.

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Table of Contents

Title: .............................................................................................................................................................. 1
Abstract: ........................................................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction:.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Body: ............................................................................................................................................................. 3
The basic purpose why exams are conducted are: ................................................................................... 3
The reasons why st&ardized exams are considered to be a good way of testing people is that these
exams are: ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Whereas on the other h& the arguments against the exams are that:.................................................... 4
Exam Anxiety Is Real ................................................................................................................................. 5
CONCLUSION: ............................................................................................................................................ 6
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................. 8

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Introduction:

Every person in this world has some strengths & weaknesses & they mostly are unique & differ
from other people. Different people have different weaknesses & different things in which they
excel & are specialized. This is one common reason why exams can fail to measure intelligence &
merely reflect a person’s ability of take exams. “Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers.
Many people with average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from
the way it is driven” (Edward De Bono). Whenever we hear the word 'EXAM' we normally think
of traditionally written academic exams. Exams are simply an examination of skills. It has always
been a matter of discussion that does the result of an exam reflect a person’s skills or simply
indicate that how good or bad a person is at attempting an exam.

Body:

The basic purpose why exams are conducted are:

1. To identify what students have learned

The reason teachers’ take tests in classrooms is to see that have the students learned from
a particular chapter or topic & to examine how well the students have grasped the concepts
that have been discussed or taught in class. These tests also help the teachers prepare a
progress report of the students which can be shown to the parents at the parent teachers
meeting.

2. To identify student's strengths & weaknesses

Exams/tests can be an effective tool for the teachers to identify a students’ strengths &
weaknesses. This is why some teachers use pretests at the beginning of the chapters to
check what the students already know & where the teachers’ focus should be.

3. To gain college credit

The results of board exams are often used for placement purposes. On the basis of the
marks obtained, the students get admission into different academic institutes. Different
academic institutions have different merits & different placement criteria.

4. To provide a way to measure a Teacher &/or school's effectiveness

The results of an academic institute often reflect how well the institute is, how effective is
their teaching & how good & capable teachers are teaching. Results are considered to be
performance gauge.

5. To provide a basis for entry into an internship, program or college

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 Exams/Testes are often used to judge students’ performances based on the marks they
obtain, which is then used as an entry into college, university of jobs.

But the point of discussion is that do exams accurately judge/measure how well someone
has understood something or how much knowledge someone has regarding something?
Exams are simply conducted on a regular basis & are often bookish. Exams should be
knowledge & skill based. Often the same thing that has been taught in the class is being
asked in exams. So, are exams used to measure knowledge/intelligence or are just a test of
how good or bad a person’s ability is to store & memorize the things taught in class by the
teacher.

The reasons why standardized exams are considered to be a good way of testing people is
that these exams are:

 Time effort

 Cost-effective

 Equilibrium in opportunities

 Less copied

 Make students to learn certain subjects

Whereas on the other h& the arguments against the exams are that:

 Exams decrease students' desire to learn.

 Students often are concerned with guessing what’s important for exams rather than
understanding the concepts.

 Practical work is missing, whereas in exams students only write what they haven’t
experienced.

 Typically the feedback which is required is often not set up to our expectations.

 Exams do not help in practical life.

 Paragraphs are often marked in a hurry so the main point to be delivered is not always
reached.

 The presentation to attempt the paper is highly noticed whereas the content is given less
importance.

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  The representatives often get bored while marking the exams because they are often
magnanimous.

 It’s hard to trust the source when exams are checked by more than one checker.

 Increases surface learning if exams questions are written absurdly.

 It does not have any kind of effect on leadership learning, teamwork or creativity.

Exams are the worst way of evaluating knowledge, if you don't take any of the other ways into
account. We all know that exams are not the perfect way of assessing skills. However, it still is the
best technique/way we have till now. Exams are essentially important as it kind of forces students
to study. If we only were taught & did not had any exams, no one would study as there would be
no examination of how well you were taught or how well you have studied. Exams let you see
your progress & learn from your mistakes. Lots of people have said that since they don't reteach
the contents of the exams one doesn't learn from the things he has done wrong. Furthermore, when
you take an exam you learn the right way of delivering your idea, managing tension, how to
manage the due dates, & different types of skills. Exam is one of the tests for someone who is a
student. It aims to test how students display & use their talents & abilities derived from the courtesy
of teachers who teach & also the student's day-to-day studies filled by reviewing & reviewing the
lessons. Exam results whether passing or failing are dependent on one’s own self. If a student
learns without the attention of enough & lazy to do the work given by the teacher & lazy to open
the book, it turns out that this student will get a reasonable result with his lazy learning habits that
fail. Otherwise if a student learns diligently, what the teacher teaches to penetrate into his / her
healthy & healthy brain, always adhere to the teacher's direction & send work at a set time, such
students will always be the child's hopes of the school & become the pride of his parents. Excellent
students will surely make their parents proud & lucky to have such a child as attentive & caring
about the lessons. At least the brilliant student did not waste the sacrifice of parents who worked
hard daytime even though the day went by, the weather changed colorlessly just because they
wanted to get school funding

Exam Anxiety Is Real

According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, "Anxiety disorders are the most
common mental illnesses in the U.S. affecting 40 million adults”.
Causes include:
The fear of getting failed. While the pressure is exerted immensely and the person who is doing so
is labelled as a motivator, it is can be disturbing for the individuals who think of nothing else but
just performing well and getting something good out of these exams.
• Not preparing the content. Not studying the content and preparing just before the exams can leave
the individuals worried or concerned & overwhelmed with fear.

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• Having a bad record exams. Performances are affected by having a bad record previously in
exams, it can influence the courage to perform well.
Academic exams are a traditional way of assessing & examining students’ learning ability. Many
teachers try to use unique & innovative teaching methods to enhance learning in the classrooms
but when it comes to exams, we do not have much alternates. We still rely on the traditional
academic exams to measure students’ learning. Whether paper based or computerized, exams are
very less knowledge or skill based. Exams are many times considered to be the most stressful part
of the education. You have to spend days & nights to memorize stuff that you were taught in the
entire academic period, which absolutely stresses you out. The pressure to perform well in the
exam is also tough to handle. Exams end up being memory tests you can't afford to fail. Just
because you did not attempt your exams well, does not mean that you did not study well or you’re
a less of a good student than others. It might probably be because you are not good at memorizing
the syllabus. Many students who do not study the entire period often perform well in exam because
they’re more into guessing the agenda of the exams rather than focusing on learning & gaining
knowledge from what is being taught. It sometimes is a matter of luck also students who do
selective study perform very well in the exam. Because the paper came from part of the syllabus
that they studied & vice versa.

This is why we believe that exams should be replaced & outlawed with some other forms of
assessments. Standardized exams are not effective because not everyone has the same skill set so
standardized criteria to measure performance & progress may not be a reliable way. Exams should
be replaced with something more flexible & more effective because traditional academic exams
have failed overtime. Students studying in the same classroom does not mean that all of them
possess the same skills & capabilities. Everyone is different & unique in their own way. Comparing
them does not make sense. Just because one scored better than others in an exams, does not mean
he has more knowledge or better understanding of the context. It may simply mean that the student
had better exam taking ability than the other students in the class. The student with the highest
marks in the class is not the most intelligent student neither the student with the lowest marks is
the least intelligent. The marks on the scorecard simply represent how well students have attempted
the exam not how well have they understood the context.

CONCLUSION:

Like any other normal person I understand that exams are essential for students but we should not
get dependent on its results. Because success can never be gauged by the score we make in exams
but with our abilities and ideas. The problem is within the word intelligence. The typical definition,
that of possessing “a quickness of understanding & an ability to apply knowledge & skills to a
high level, should give us pause to ask how well equipped our current examination system is to
deliver”. Many ‘achievement holder’ students, so identified by the data emerging from various
intelligence tests (which strengthen teacher’s thoughts), are disturbed by papers that lead out the

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same questions in a different garb. This discourages an aesthetic mind and supports cramming and
puts one’s mind to negative thinking. Simply said, measuring intelligence through examination is,
automatically, as limited as the examination itself. We know pretty well that intelligence is
something which is not to be shown it is something which finds its way on its own it’s the time
which really matters. Students with poor grades in academic lives have also been successful
businessman while toppers of topped ranked universities have also been seen to be low paid
employees. Exams results do not indicate much & results are often useless when it comes to
practical lives. Toppers do not always perform well in life & failure students do not always fail in
life. This makes the exam results meaningless. There are straightforward purposes behind this,
aside from the disappointment of examinations to quantify different reasoning & inventiveness
(due to some extent to the need to continue checking as goal &, hence, as firm as conceivable to
expel any space for subjective judgment). The issue of estimating knowledge fundamentally is that
it is an insufficient manual for human ability, & that a considerable many ways we use to measure
working insight are badly deficient. Without a doubt those we ought to look to distinguish &
sustain are understudies with the limit of successful or connected insight, the individuals who can
accomplish something with what information & abilities they obtain? Too much 'clever'
youngsters, frequently exhausted by customary learning, checking net every now and then. Others
simply think diversely to the straitjacket managed by 'one size fits all' exams. For example, the
rundown of those illuminators with learning challenges who thought that it was hard to
communicate in regular examinations makes for calm perusing

All types of assessment have confinements, either for understudies or stamping staff. There is more
on appraisal in the benchmarking proclamations for both social work & social strategy. Care must
be taken that appraisal isn't just completed utilizing one model, for example, cost-effectiveness.
Appraisal of understudies ought to be suitable to the train, & take into account the assorted variety
of the understudy profile. There is a proceeding with contention that there is excessively evaluation
in advanced education which empowers appraisal drove understudies, instead of learning-drove
understudies. Thought could likewise be given to surveying your understudies on skill & also
content. Most importantly, appraisal ought to be:

 Up to mark
 dependable & unshakeable
 Diversity
 To the point, clear
 Learning is enhanced
 Promoting severe learning

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Bibliography
 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11678216/Intelligence-cannot-
be-defined-by-exams.html
 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-purpose-of-exam
 http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-school-exams-be-replaced-with-different-ways-
of-assessing-skills-&-knowledge

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