“Exams are the perfect way of assessing a student’s knowledge and ability. They encourage
young adult’s to learn how to manage their time and organise themselves and allow you to
gauge and compare from one individual to another using a standard set assessment
process.”
Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this
statement.
24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy
40 marks
How NOT to examine your excellence:
“Pens down please! It is the end of the exam – please close your booklets and remain quiet
as there are still students who are finishing the exam.”
Envisage this: you’re back in your secondary school exam hall again. Your chair is sweaty,
your left hand is numb but to balance it out your right hand is cramped with blisters. You
hear the collective “clink” of everyone’s pens dropping and finally – you can relax. This
bittersweet (mostly bitter) moment marks the end of five stressful weeks of exams. On your
walk home you breathe in the clean summer air and as you reach your home you greet your
parents with a smile – something you haven’t done in five weeks. You look at the person in
front of you, a person who looks dishevelled, disheartened and burnt out. Shades of black
and blue under the eyes, painful acne all around the forehead and, quite frankly, someone
who looks like they haven’t slept in years. You’re looking in the mirror.
The undeniable truth is that exams have both a mental and physical toll on students that is
incredibly hard to overcome. More importantly, exams are testing young adults on all the
wrong things. While some view exams as a way of assessing a student’s knowledge and
ability, the truth is that they are just memory tests. Memorization and retention are the only
thing’s school’s measure and they don’t test what is truly important. Instead of being taught
how to change a tyre or safely make an omelette in the kitchen (two very important life
skills!) – students are taught how to find the length of a triangle when given angles A and B,
and what happens to an element’s atomic structure when it gains an alpha particle.
Insert picture of several rows of students in a small exam hall
Some may understandably argue that exams motivate a student to learn how to revise, get
organised and become disciplined – however, school is meant to prepare children for the
“real world” and the modern world values people who are communicative, collaborative and
creative. Exams don’t encourage any of these qualities. What is irrefutably worse is the fact
that test scores are the only thing kids value.
The grading system is degrading.
A study was conducted in 2018 by a group of students at Oxford university which concluded
that students’ amygdala (the part of our brain that signals stress) was 10 times more active
during exam season. Furthermore, in 2020 the same students were called in and the same
tests were taken, but their amygdala had reduced in size and they also reported that they felt
their mental clarity and emotional intelligence had improved. The difference? The second set
of results were collected during lockdown when COVID-19 cases were increasing… when it
was announced that exams would be cancelled.
young adult’s to learn how to manage their time and organise themselves and allow you to
gauge and compare from one individual to another using a standard set assessment
process.”
Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this
statement.
24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy
40 marks
How NOT to examine your excellence:
“Pens down please! It is the end of the exam – please close your booklets and remain quiet
as there are still students who are finishing the exam.”
Envisage this: you’re back in your secondary school exam hall again. Your chair is sweaty,
your left hand is numb but to balance it out your right hand is cramped with blisters. You
hear the collective “clink” of everyone’s pens dropping and finally – you can relax. This
bittersweet (mostly bitter) moment marks the end of five stressful weeks of exams. On your
walk home you breathe in the clean summer air and as you reach your home you greet your
parents with a smile – something you haven’t done in five weeks. You look at the person in
front of you, a person who looks dishevelled, disheartened and burnt out. Shades of black
and blue under the eyes, painful acne all around the forehead and, quite frankly, someone
who looks like they haven’t slept in years. You’re looking in the mirror.
The undeniable truth is that exams have both a mental and physical toll on students that is
incredibly hard to overcome. More importantly, exams are testing young adults on all the
wrong things. While some view exams as a way of assessing a student’s knowledge and
ability, the truth is that they are just memory tests. Memorization and retention are the only
thing’s school’s measure and they don’t test what is truly important. Instead of being taught
how to change a tyre or safely make an omelette in the kitchen (two very important life
skills!) – students are taught how to find the length of a triangle when given angles A and B,
and what happens to an element’s atomic structure when it gains an alpha particle.
Insert picture of several rows of students in a small exam hall
Some may understandably argue that exams motivate a student to learn how to revise, get
organised and become disciplined – however, school is meant to prepare children for the
“real world” and the modern world values people who are communicative, collaborative and
creative. Exams don’t encourage any of these qualities. What is irrefutably worse is the fact
that test scores are the only thing kids value.
The grading system is degrading.
A study was conducted in 2018 by a group of students at Oxford university which concluded
that students’ amygdala (the part of our brain that signals stress) was 10 times more active
during exam season. Furthermore, in 2020 the same students were called in and the same
tests were taken, but their amygdala had reduced in size and they also reported that they felt
their mental clarity and emotional intelligence had improved. The difference? The second set
of results were collected during lockdown when COVID-19 cases were increasing… when it
was announced that exams would be cancelled.
