Many people believe that formal “pen and paper” examinations are not the best method of assessing educational achievement. Discuss this view and give your own opinion.

While it is true that there has been some path-breaking research in education, academic achievements are still assessed using the old fashioned ‘pen and paper’ exams. Many people believe that

this

is a flawed method. I don’t fully agree with them. Paper based written examinations have their flaws. The biggest problem with the traditional examinations is that they only assess the performance of the

student

on the day of the exam.

As a result

a bright

student

who couldn’t prepare well for the exam due to reasons that were beyond their control will get a poor grade.

This

is unfair. If the

student

performed well throughout the year in class tests and other informal assessments, there is no justification for giving them a poor grade just because they failed to perform well in one examination. Written examinations

also

encourage mugging. Parents and teachers force students to learn

answers

Suggestion

the answers

by heart with the sole objective of getting a good score. Many of these students don’t understand the concepts and yet they get good marks. They won’t be able to answer the same questions if you ask them a few days later.

This

kind of learning will benefit neither the

student

nor the society. An alternative solution is to

use

a method of continuous evaluation. Schools should monitor the performance of students from day one. They should

also

use

a variety of parameters to determine the merit of each

student

. Unfortunately,

this

method

also

has its flaws. In most cases, teachers and schools try to manipulate the results with the objective of getting great results for their school. Education is a highly competitive sector and every school wants to get better results than other schools. So in

this

scenario if

Accept comma addition

scenario, if

schools are entrusted with the task of grading their students, we cannot expect the results to be impartial. Perhaps a better solution is to

use

written examinations in tandem with continuous evaluation.

This

will ensure that good students will get the grades they deserve even if they fail to perform well on exam day. To conclude, the traditional written examination has its flaws. Other methods have their flaws too. In my opinion, the government and the schools should

use

a variety of methods and parameters to assess the calibre of their students.