There seems to be an increasing trend towards assessing students through exams rather than continual assessment What are the advantages and disadvantages of exams as a form of assessments

In recent years, the approach of using exams to assess students has risen in popularity over the alternative of continual assessment. This essay will highlight both the benefits and drawbacks that result from such an approach.

To begin with the positives, a crucial advantage that examinations have as a form of assessment is that they leave little room for cheating. This is because exams are usually undertaken in the presence of an invigilator, whose job it is to detect any candidate breaking the rules. In contrast, continual assessment increases the risk of plagiarism since assignments are often completed with the help of the internet. Besides reducing cheating, exams are also more time-efficient. As they tend to only appear once or twice per year, they free up more time for students to revise and prepare.

Nevertheless, assessing students via examinations does present some problems. For instance, some students are extremely intelligent and creative, but when put under pressure their minds can go blank. Considering that exams are situations of intensely high pressure, it is no wonder that even the brightest of students sometimes perform poorly. Another significant disadvantage of this system is the narrow range of information which students are tested on. Unlike with continual assessment, the small window of time in tests limits how many questions can be asked, thus failing to test students’ knowledge in full.

In conclusion, although formal examinations are beneficial in terms of cutting out cheating and improving efficiency, it is important to consider that they also harm some students’ concentration and are arguably not as thorough as continual assessments.

Votes
Average: 8.4 (2 votes)
Essays by the user:

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, if, nevertheless, so, thus, for instance, in conclusion, in contrast, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 13.1623246493 114% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 7.85571142285 38% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 10.4138276553 67% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 7.30460921844 123% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 24.0651302605 71% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 41.998997996 93% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 8.3376753507 96% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1439.0 1615.20841683 89% => OK
No of words: 264.0 315.596192385 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45075757576 5.12529762239 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03089032464 4.20363070211 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0436425146 2.80592935109 108% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 176.041082164 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.647727272727 0.561755894193 115% => OK
syllable_count: 444.6 506.74238477 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.60771543086 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 5.43587174349 92% => OK
Article: 3.0 2.52805611222 119% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.10420841683 95% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 0.809619238477 124% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.76152304609 126% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 16.0721442886 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 20.0 20.2975951904 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.1671452044 49.4020404114 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.692307692 106.682146367 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3076923077 20.7667163134 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.92307692308 7.06120827912 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.38176352705 91% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.01903807615 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.67935871743 81% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 3.9879759519 125% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 3.4128256513 29% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.27599056401 0.244688304435 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0893321100298 0.084324248473 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0614989781046 0.0667982634062 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147887097194 0.151304729494 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0638372582062 0.056905535591 112% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 13.0946893788 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 50.2224549098 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.44779559118 118% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 11.3001002004 109% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.4159519038 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.65 8.58950901804 112% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 78.4519038076 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 9.78957915832 112% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.1190380762 99% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 10.7795591182 93% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 67.4157303371 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 6.0 Out of 9
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.