Are exams actually necessary?

Many students these days are concerned about the amount of time that it is spent on exam preparation, and all the stress that it is suffered. As a result many educational institutions are adopting progress assessments. Perhaps, another option, however, should be for educational institutions to abolish examinations. Stress and anxiety is very common in youth nowadays as a consequence of exam preparation and professor?s preassure towards students.

All that leads to illnesses and the quality of student?s life decreases. It is well known that large numbers of young people become frustrated when they fail an examination which was probably prepared in a whole year. Exams also test students? memory. It is a sad fact that knowledge required to pass the exam is theorical, and sometimes useless. They are tought to think in the wrong way, because we are surrounded by open-ended problems in real life.

However, it is important to point out that the idea of abolishing exams once and for all is not good. Exams are another way of testing intellectual knowledge. Thus, students should have the option in case they want to sit for a subject without assisting regular lessons in the institution. In conclusion, it would seem that exams have an important benefit. Nevertheless, we have to consider the points raised and educational institutions should select their evaluations in a balanced way between exams, assessments, modules and others. Exams should be held only when needed or when they are asked by students for a special reason.

Assessments have to be done when a topic or part of the syllabus is already finished, so that the educator can have a better feedback of the class, and module system is valuable in order to make students study up to a certain part of the course and be able to do the next if they pass the previous one.