SHOULD EXAMS BE ABOLISHED OR BE REPLACED BY ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT

METHODS

Hardly a week goes by without another report of a teacher assaulted by a student because of getting
bad grades appearing in the media. This lead to the question of whether exams should be abolished
or be replaced by other assessment methods.
To begin with, traditional exams as a form of assessment are obsolete and their pedagogical
effectiveness has been questioned. In the majority of traditional educational systems the best grades
are often not obtained by the most intelligent students but by those with the best memories due to
the fact that tuition is still focused on learning facts by heart rather than incorporating that
knowledge and keeping it for the rest of their life. Therefore students only achieve a weak knowledge
that they forget within a couple of days or even weeks.
Another factor to consider is that the approach of exams is stressful for students and often they are
the trigger of anxiety episodes, nervousness and stress. Under this pressure, if a student didn’t
perform to their parents’ expectations in the exams and get bad grades it would undermine his self-
esteem and make him feel unsuccessful which may lead them to drop out of the school or even
taking the extreme step of ending their life by committing suicide.
Last but not least, traditional exams are not a reliable test of gauging the ability of the students as
luck plays a major role. It is impossible to test every aspect of a subject in the short time an exam last.
If a student is lucky and what he or she studied for is tested in the exam, it stands to reason that he
or she will score higher than a student who has no studied up to the required standard.
Although it is true that some people think that teachers should try to use alternative assessment
methods such as portfolios or projects aimed at encouraging students to develop their research skills,
I would like to point out that the content that is tested in exams are randomly set so people are
forced to study everything which makes them better at the subject. Moreover, exams help teachers
to know what material the students have not mastered and need to study harder.
On the whole, although exams are a stressful experience for students and could be replaced by
alternative assessment methods that would make learning more pleasant, I Believe that traditional
exams, on the contrary, for teachers are a useful tool in order to see what subjects the student find it
difficult.