Formal examinations are the only effective way to assess a student's performance. Continual assessment such as coursework and projects are not a satisfactory way to do this. Do you agree or disagree

One of the pillars of education systems is an examination of students' progress. Many argue that conventional formal

examinations

are the only effective assessment tool, and continual assessments are not reliable enough.

This

statement has been disagreed with as not only do formal

examinations

have several drawbacks, but

also

continual assessments have the potential to accurately examine various competencies over time.

Firstly

, formal

examinations

are not without imperfections. Primarily these

examinations

are usually conducted in stressful conditions, meaning that the

results

are distorted

due to

the student’s ability to cope with the stress,

instead

of solely assessing their knowledge about the topic.

Accordingly

, these

results

are not reliable.

Therefore

many times, formal

examinations

lead us to inaccurate

results

.

Secondly

, continual

examinations

assess the student’s abilities in several steps.

This

continuum not only releases the tension during

examinations

but

also

gives us a more precise result

due to

the fact that many retests validate the final outcome. In summary, routine

examinations

are incapable of thoroughly assessing the understanding of test takers,

while

continual assessment pros outweigh its minor cons.

Therefore

, the argument that continual assessment

results

are not valid as that of formal

examinations

is not supported. With the improvements in continual testing, the unnecessary destroying stress of exam days will be diminished.