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

Exams are gradually becoming a trend for assessing students

instead

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of continual - grading - system.

This

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practice has some demerits and merits. I will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of using exams rather than continuous appraisals as a form of below. The use of exams as a method of evaluation

instead

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of repeated tests has some advantages. One of

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advantages is that

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practice allows the pupil to focus on doing well in only once in a semester.

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, a recent study by the Department of Education, University of Benin showed that students preferred to do a single examination in a semester rather than continuous evaluation of understanding because it is less stressful to prepare for. Another advantage of

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trend is that the resources a school would have used in conducting regular test would be saved.

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, the use of continuous - evaluation - method for evaluating performance

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has some disadvantages.

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, the student is provided with an opportunity to show he understands a course in only once. If he fails to do

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, he has no chance to prove he has learnt anything in that class anymore.

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, I once took an exam in college where I required 50% out of 100% to pass a course. The scores were split into 70% for final examination and 30% for midterm test. Unfortunately, I scored 30% out of 70% during the final, but I was lucky I had scored 20% out of 30% in the midterm appraisal.

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, a disadvantage of not assessing pupils regularly is that students may not read their book until it is time for to be tested and

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may reduce their chances of scoring high marks. In conclusion, the merits of conducting one exam in a class as a mode of checking students' understanding are that it allows the student to focus on doing well in only one test in a semester and

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, it saves the school resources that would have been used if regular tests were conducted.

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, the cons of

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trend are that the undergraduate only gets a single opportunity to pass a course and scholars may not read their book until it is time for the exam.