Advantages And Disadvantages Of Exams

Improved Essays
The examination system can be traced back thousands of years ago in China, where it started in the year 206 BC. Considering that education was very vital by then, people were selected to become leaders based on merit by using exams. This was in a bid to eliminate the unfair selection that was mainly based on the connections that one had to a very well-known family either by wealth or even political affiliations (Kaplan). A person would be raised to a particular social status depending on how he or she would have passed a given exam. This kind of system was adopted by many other nations later on, and it is mostly used in schools for testing students and the best are selected to do the most prestigious jobs available in the market. While it may …show more content…
The pressure associated with passing an exam is too high, considering that teachers and parents are pushing their children to be successful in their exams. In most cases, when one fails, they are abused and despised instead of being encouraged, thereby making a student lose morale in trying to find meaning in an exam. In fact, they may start seeing exams as a routine that they must pass through, knowing that they will obviously fail. Some students may become so distressed that they may even commit suicide. This because failing of exams has been greatly associated with the fact that one will also fail in life too (Bemposta Rosende, García García and Escribano Otero …show more content…
When proper examination rules are applied, students may get the best out of exams. Teachers may also have the ability to know that they are either teaching in the proper manner, or that they are simply wasting the time of students. The reward system that is associated with exams is very vital in the sense that it works as a way of motivating the students to work very hard so that they are rewarded for the good work they may have done (Kaplan 5). The students who do not perform well may be encouraged, so that the next time they sit an exam they are able to score more marks than the ones they have gotten. Those who cheat simply because of the pressure associated with passing exams are people who do so for their personal malicious reasons, as the system does not allow cheating. The best performance for each student is relative, as the best mark for a particular student may not be the best for another. Exams bring about equality when it comes to determining the ability of various students (Kaplan

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Standardized Testing

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The world of higher education, since its beginning, has become progressively more complex and convoluted. Structures and systems have adapted and transformed, partially in response to an increasingly fast-paced society, and partially as a result of increased emphasis on various subjects and disciplines. Of particular interest to this author is the prestige of a college or university, with specific regards to standardized testing as a measure. In other words: Are standardized test scores of enrolled freshmen an accurate measure of the prestige of a college or university?…

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Students blame the teachers for inappropriate behavior because they feel that certain faculty allowed students opportunities to be dishonest and thus were responsible for the students’ actions. Weak institutional policies and unobservant or unconcerned faculty provide a student with what they believe is an opportunity to cheat, a way to level the playing field. This can be a particular problem on large campuses and in courses with large enrollments, environments where it is harder to establish a stern culture. Once a student is given an opportunity to cheat, because of the desire to pass examinations, will cheat. As an occasion to cheat presents itself, the external factors of desire to get the grade prompts an individual to take advantage of the given chance.…

    • 1328 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For this discussionn board I chose the article on CNN called Cheating in Atlanta Public Schools: it is not what you think. In this article the issues regarding pressure placed on teachers to perform is discussed along with the disadvantages of standardized tests in school environments. The incentive provided by students scoring high on the Criterion Reference Compentency Test (CRCT) urges teachers to strive towards better test results in their classrooms without having regard to specific student educational needs. As far as economics is concerned, the issues teachers faced in their demographic location along with statistics of local social classes showed many red flags that were never researched fast enough. As this specific article explains, the area in Atlanta where the school was located in was a lower income area where 90% of children qualify for free or reduced lunches.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With a growing number of schools are doing what public urging, abandoning test attracts a lot of enthusias all over the world. Even the country, which always implements exam-oriented education, China is no exception. In 2007, a Test Forbidding Crisis had swept Chengdu, Sichuan to stop the increasing burdens from testing. The former governor of Chengdu announced, “Developing education is the root of development to the country rich and people strong, whereas, exam-oriented education’s pressure breached this principle.” Although that revolution failed, it did report on Chinese developing direction and alerted people the failure of formalistic test.…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Honor Code Dbq

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Where there is low tolerance for cheating, there are more people that are likely to cheat. So basically, teachers are setting their students of for failure because they are careless of how students take exams. We also see the assumption of cheating by teachers. The honor code will not work because schools that want to use it must set standards for themselves…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “What do students lose by being perfect? Valuable failure”, by Holly Korbey is an article that illustrates the grade obsessed parenting style developed in the recent past. Holly Korbey believes that failure is a process leading up to success, contrary to parent beliefs. Today, kids’ minds are led to think that there is no coming back from…

    • 58 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Standardized tests go back a long time, but just because they have been present for so many years does not mean they are a good source to use. They do not measure all of a student’s brainpower and some even put low income and minority students at disadvantage. These tests should not be used anywhere at all. We could say standardized tests began in China during the seventh-century when the government began administering written exams to select candidates for civil services (Introduction). Today the Chinese use the Goakao, or high test, which is an incredibly strenuous test required to gain admittance to higher education in China (Introduction).…

    • 1688 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized testing is often scrutinized by teachers instead of being looked at in a positive manner. There are many ways to utilize such a test. The best possible way would be to teach to the test. It not only benefits the original reason standardized tests are in place, it also provides a backbone for what to teach. It allows you to stay within professional boundaries and also allows the teacher to teach to their liking with what material is provided.…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Essay On Honor Codes

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Technology today allows students to easily access information that may be used to plagiarize on their school work and exams. In light of the problems with plagiarism, honor codes and systems have become increasingly popular to prohibit the amount of cheating in schools. While my school currently has an honor code, it would be better to revise it so the student culture regarding the code will improve and to ensure that students desire to succeed and do well on their work. To begin, student culture regarding the honor codes at their schools is essential because it determines whether or not the rules would be taken seriously. There may be an honor code that is strictly enforced, but if students have no part of the process and are only punished,…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction High-stakes testing is believed to have improved the quality of American education through its systems of rewards and sanctions that are triggered by a student’s standardized test score (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2006).The theory behind this new outlook is that educators and their students will work harder and more effectively to enhance student learning when faced with large incentives and threatening punishments. Many critics fear that the effects of high stakes testing not only will threaten the validity of test scores, but it may also lead to perverse and corrupt educational practices. Others worry that the pressure of doing well on a test will negotiate how instructional practices are implemented in the classroom as well as permit teachers from caring for their students’ needs that are separate from how they will score on these standardized tests. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the pressure of high-stakes testing has a negative impact on student test scores. History of High Stakes Testing Since the signing of No Child Left Behind student test scores have become a vital sign of how well a school is achieving.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    "Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent students do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds." (Ravitch) Standardized testing has been around since the 1920s and is taken by millions of students around the world every year. Students start taking standardized testing at the early age of 5 (kindergarten) and can continue taking them through eighth grade. Standardized testing has caused negative effects on children all around the world and is an inaccurate way to access a students academic performance.…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Early American Education

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Parents and teachers are hard on their kids on passing exams while they should be building their students characters, and further improve their personality. For this reasoning students are…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the article “Why I Think Students Should Cheat,” Cevin Soling (2015) argues that even though cheating is wrong, there are many advantages. Students are taught that cheating is wrong because it impacts self-esteem through unearned rewards and stimulates bad habits. However, these points are not valid considering the environment students are put in, where failure is not an option. It can be overwhelming and draw students to take the easy way out, cheating. According to the author, cheating should be done by all students in compulsory schools because it can boost self-esteem, confidence and instill pride.…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Standardized tests are a well known controversial issue that have resulted in an ongoing, continuous concern for years. In todays educational systems, teachers and school boards rely heavily on standardized testing in order to form some sort of idea for as to where the knowledge of their students ' stands, as well as the ability they may or may not contain. These specific types of tests supposedly carry the ability to measure a child 's knowledge, but are they really accurate? Many people have found that standardized tests are a useful source to use in order to detect if a student contains the amount of knowledge that he or she is required to hold. On the other hand, some may argue that standardized tests are an unreliable source and contain inaccurate information…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Part 1: What experiences – personal, professional, and/or educational – have shaped your motivation to pursue a teaching career in an urban district, and to teach the specific content/grade level to which you applied? Part 2: What is something specific to the content/grade level to which you applied that you believe is worthwhile for students to learn, and why? How might you engage students in the teaching and learning of this knowledge or skill?…

    • 1797 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics