Are Exams a Relevant Form of Assessment in the Education System?

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It was on a clear sunny day, when I peered out through the window adjacent to my study desk and there in plain sight, the hostel’s jacaranda trees were in full bloom. After having spent two years in a hostel at my former high school, my fellow classmates and I had come to associate the blooming of jacaranda trees as a sign of the beginning of mid-term exams. It is ironic how whenever I looked at the beautiful scenery formed by the blooming jacarandas, it sent shivers down my whole body as the exams approached instead of me enjoying Mother Nature. Exams were upon us and all one could hear throughout the hostel in the different dormitories, was the frantic flipping of pages as we all tried to maximize on our “last minute studying” time. I for one had been procrastinating and was trying to “stuff” my brain with all my notes and the complex formulas in preparation for the chemistry mid-term exam that I was sitting for the following day. The time to face “our demons” arrived. As my classmates and I entered the exam room and from the looks on people’s faces, one could almost accurately separate those that were prepared for the exam and those that were not. Nonetheless, we all sat down in our designated places and took the exam under the watchful eye of the invigilator.
A few weeks down the line, our teacher gave us back the exam results that were in their own way a bag of surprises as those who were dubbed as intelligent students had done poorly on the exam and the not so intelligent students had scored high. My teacher was puzzled by these results and to help him comprehend fully what had happened he asked each student for an honest feedback about the exam. He soon discovered that the reason why my classmates and I (his top students) h...

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..."Take a Test to Really Learn, Research Suggests." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
BBC. "Education Ban Exam 'abuse' Says Teacher." BBC News. BBC, 27 July 1999. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Bhatia, Roshni. "Should Examinations Be Replaced with Other Forms of
Assessment?"ManagementParadisecom Forums Your MBA Online Degree Program and
Management Students Forum for MBABMS MMS BMM BBA Students Aspirants RSS. Vbulletin
Solutions, Inc, 4 Oct. 2006. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Hasan, Mehdi. "Our Schools Exam System Is no Longer Fit for Purpose." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 17 Dec. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Robinson, Ken, Sir. "Are Exams an Effective Form of Assessment in Education?" The Badger. Cambridge,
7 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

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