Examinations Are Waste Of Time

Examinations are formal written, oral or practical tests in school to see how much a student knows about a subject. I finally believe that there is a place for examination in any school system.

For one thing, examinations are very useful. Firstly, they show how much a student has learned or understood a subject. If a student gets low marks, it is a signal to study harder. Secondly, if too many students get low marks, then it is a sign to the teacher to provide extra lessons to help the students.

For another thing, examinations create a healthy competitive environment. Students study hard so that they can score better marks than other students in the class. So, examinations play an important role in getting students to study.

One other reason why examinations are useful is that they help to assess and grade students. They reveal the aptitude of students. Some students have an aptitude for science subjects. Others have an aptitude for arts subjects. Still others are inclined towards vocational subjects. Without examination, teachers would not be able to assess the students’ aptitude.

As such, examinations play a very important role in the school or education system. However, examinations can become a waste of time if they occupy too much time in school calendar. We must remember that they are testing tools, not teaching tools. If a school spends too much time on testing, where will it find the time to teach or complete the syllabus?

Let us take the Form Five students in Malaysia for example. They face monthly tests, end-of-term tests, the trial examination and finally the SPM. In between, teachers may set informal tests at the end of each chapter. As soon as one set of tests is completed, another set surfaces. This means that there are simply too many tests! The story is exactly the same for students of other forms. Instead of the SPM, they face the PMR or year-end examination.

So much time is taken over by tests that teachers have less time to teach or revise. They rush through the syllabus. There is no time to explain or do more exercises in order for students to understand the topic. This is not fair at all to the students.

At the same time, students find themselves mugging for examinations all the time. This causes a lot of stress and helps no one, especially students. Students need time to study, understand, discuss, revise and practice. They can’t have this precious time if they are mugging up for tests.

In short, a system which has too many examinations does more harm than good. It defeats the school system itself by taking away the time needed to teach and study.

Therefore, in conclusion, examinations have their place in school. They are not a waste of time, if they are few and far between. However, if there are too many of them in school calendar, they waste time, effort and resources.

Exam Stress

Taking exams is bound to be stressful because of what's at stake. You may be feeling a weight of expectation from your family, school, university or workplace to succeed. You may be afraid you're not good enough, or haven't worked hard enough. You may be scared of letting yourself down, or that you'll miss out on a job, university place or career move.

Your pre-exam nerves may seem much worse if you are doing exams for the first time or after a long gap, if English is not your first language or if you have particular learning difficulties. Nor do exams exist in isolation, there may well be other events going on in your life that are putting you under pressure.

If your stress levels rise too high for too long, it can be harmful both to you and to your chances. Everybody's stress 'threshold' is different. A situation that is too much for one person to tolerate may be stimulating to another. Controlled at the right level, however, stress can work to your advantage, because it can help you to produce your peak performance.

Exams bring out the best in some people, and the worst in others. Whatever the case, you may be in a situation where you have to do them. Remind yourself that you can only do your best - and your best is all that you can do.

If you find out exactly what you're facing, you can work out a plan for dealing with it, and this will go a long way towards putting your mind at ease. Get hold of the right information from the start. Make sure you know how you will be examined, and what you'll be examined on. If you can, get a copy of the syllabus. Catch up with anything you've missed, so that you've got all your notes up to date.

Find out about the resources available to help you. School and university teachers are an expert resource, although they may not have a lot of time to give you. There are also many good revision guides, TV revision programmers and a wide range of internet sites to use.

Try to start your revision in plenty of time. Take time to plan a revision timetable that's realistic and still flexible, and linked to your exam timetable, so you revise subjects in the right order. In planning it, give yourself clear priorities and try to balance your revision with other demands on your time - meals, sleep, chores or other commitments, as well as time for relaxing. Identify your best time of day for studying.

If you are on study leave, one way to structure your work might be to divide each day into three units (morning, afternoon and evening), giving you a total of 21 units per week. Then make a list of all the topics you need to cover. Estimate how long you think it will take you to revise each one, allowing more time for things you find most difficult. Then add on plenty of extra. Finally, divide the topics up between the units.

Everyone needs time off, and it's a bad idea to abandon your social life and sporting activities, but for a period near the examinations, you may need to cut down. This may involve making hard choices. Always leave yourself a minimum of six units of free time per week.

Benefits Taking The Final Examination

The dreaded final exam. Every student fears, no matter how much they may say they enjoy the process and why wouldn't they? Final exams represent the culmination of all that's been learned and experienced over the year, and summing the whole package into one two or three hour long examination can sometimes often prove difficult.

But the things we fear often turn out to be beneficial, and the same goes with exams. They're a pain and a chore, true, but they're also character builders. Exams are excellent at not only revealing our strengths but also our weaknesses, telling us what we need to concentrate on and where we need to improve. As such taking a few exams in your life is not a bad thing, for even though you may score badly you'll still, in the end, learn something.

Here are some of the benefits of taking final exams

- Exams force you to re-learn material, increasing the chances that it will stick in your brain. It's an obvious benefit, but still bears noting first. Exams require re-reading of one's notes from throughout the year, not to mention poring over slides, investigating diagrams and sometimes even watching videos. Even if it's all stuff you've already learned, you're more likely to retain it for a longer time if you've had to go over it all again a second time. 

- Exams force students to develop time management habits. Let's say you have two major exams on one day and a third on the next day, with only one week to study for them all. You may think that one of those exams should fit into that week rather than three. What's to be done? Well, you need to develop some time management skills to ensure that you can get all your memorization completed before those dreadful two days, not to mention do everything else that's normally required in those days (day-to-day tasks like shopping, cooking, working, that sort of thing). There's no better way to develop these abilities than under duress. 

- Exams force students to focus. It's difficult to get through all that material three or four times so it stays in your head, especially if the weather's nice and friends with less work to do beckon. Avoid these happy evils and stay inside. The more you can focus, the better off you'll be and the easier you'll find it later on. The ability to focus on your tasks also translates well to the workforce, so if you're successful now employers will be happy in the future.

- Exams reveal a student's preferred method of study. The first time you need to study for an exam you may find yourself hitting a wall. Simply reading notes doesn't work for everyone. Others may need to spice up their study routine, and a looming exam will force them to re-evaluate their methods, and quickly. Some ingenious exam study methods have doubtless sprung forth from stress, and no matter how odd they may be, if it works, it works.

- And last, exams let you know if you're ready to advance to the next level. This is the ultimate purpose of an exam, and even if a student fails and is held back they may benefit in the long run. A failed exam identifies an unprepared student perhaps they need another year before they're fully comfortable with their chosen field. Or perhaps failure simply indicates a lack of proficiency and interest in the course, which can help a student realize that they may not want to pursue this area of study. It's a hard lesson to learn, but in the end a worthy one.