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 that 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: 7.8 (1 vote)
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: 18.0 24.0651302605 75% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 41.998997996 93% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 8.3376753507 96% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1464.0 1615.20841683 91% => OK
No of words: 264.0 315.596192385 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.54545454545 5.12529762239 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03089032464 4.20363070211 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04476661912 2.80592935109 109% => OK
Unique words: 170.0 176.041082164 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.643939393939 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: 6.0 5.43587174349 110% => OK
Article: 4.0 2.52805611222 158% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.10420841683 95% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 0.809619238477 247% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.76152304609 147% => 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: 45.6325690812 49.4020404114 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.615384615 106.682146367 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3076923077 20.7667163134 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.92307692308 7.06120827912 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 19.0 4.38176352705 434% => Less paragraphs wanted.
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: 0.276467222917 0.244688304435 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0895522458155 0.084324248473 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0613939815393 0.0667982634062 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0723366616405 0.151304729494 48% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0620768850866 0.056905535591 109% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 13.0946893788 114% => 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: 14.91 12.4159519038 120% => 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: 15.0 10.7795591182 139% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Maximum five paragraphs wanted.

Rates: 78.6516853933 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 7.0 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.