 The Stress on Students

As a GCSE Student, the amount of pressure for my upcoming exams is too high. My Teachers haven't
even finished the topics that we are studying and we won't revise within a class at school. This is
meaning that we have to revise all at home every night while doing extra homework therefore putting a
lot of pressure on the students in my class. Students should be assessed on the class work we do in Class
and not in an exam...

 Waste of time, and anachronistic

Exams and grades the two most dreaded words any students with any self respect dreads to hear. Why?
Because they are waste of time, and anchoronistic in todays society. The main reason exams are waste
of time is the fact that large majority of them are memory text only and any one with basic knowlege on
how human mind works that memory's divided into long term memory and short time memory. Firstly
when students studies for exams they usually ends up putting lot of information they intake in short
period of time leading up to the exam on on the short memory, thus they will forget most if not all of it
within minutes or hours after they have handed in the exam. As the brain with consider these
infromation redundant. When a studient know he has to memorize large amount of information in short
period of time, he will also be worried if he will remember all these information he has aquired during
the exams, which can cause various form of mental blocks. Such as don't remember what was "learned"
prior to the exam then remember soon as exam is over and has been handed in. Resulting in lower
grade, or student not performng at all on the test and freak out causing serious distress and mental
health effects. Because students will be more worried about the grade they get than what they actuall
learn, thus not having any actual knowledge of the source material despite what the grade say. The
student that score only minimal passing grade or even fail grade might somtimes even be the one that
has much more knowledge on the source material on the whole than the person that scored the highest
grade. As exam cannot and will not cover the entry course subject matter then you would need much
longer exam than 60 min - 240 min depending on if you are in elementry school, high school or collage.
Thus exam are not fit for the purpose of ranking students by knowledge or skills. Big final Exam should
abolished.

Posted by: DoctorHver

 Unfair Evaluation of Ability

Exams do not properly represent a student's ability or knowledge in a subject, no matter whether their
grade is good or bad. It's not a matter of just carrying on with the tired system of examination that we
follow and will sadly probably follow for the next few years: it's about reforming the system to cater to
every student of any ability.

Take English Language in British schools. The student has 2 hours 15 minutes for the paper, to complete
three 8 mark questions, two 16 mark questions and one 24 mark question. 15 minutes is necessary
reading time, so we take this down to 2 hours. Students must stick to spending 12 minutes writing 1 &
1/2 pages of detailed, analytical writing in order to even get a 'C' grade and finish within the time limit
for the first 3 questions. 12 minutes! In context, this is no time whatsoever. And if a student goes slightly
over, the knock-on effect on their time limit increases stress and does not benefit the student.

Politicians don't limit themselves to 12 minutes when writing their speeches, nor do the likes of
businessmen & women, or teachers preparing lessons. So why do we put students in unrealistic time
frames?

Secondly, exams decide the student's knowledge on just 1 day out of the 730 - 1,095 days (2 - 3 years,
usually) they spend studying that subject. If a student is feeling unwell, or significant life events have
hampered their ability to perform at their best, then that will not be reflected in the student's grade
which will follow them around for the rest of their life, with 'special consideration' barely making any
difference to a grade. An A* student may mess up their exam and be labelled as a C student. Is that fair?
Personally, I think not.

The world needs people of all abilities to function. The mindset we have in today's society that if 'You
don't go to University, you're not intelligent or worthwhile,' couldn't be further than the truth. How
would the world work without bin men; without supermarket workers; without entrepreneurs? The
exam system doesn't cater to them.

Exams are a test of Memory, not Intelligence.

If you can remember the ways in which a solo pianist uses techniques to improve a performance, then
your exam life will be easy. But what's the point in knowing that if you cannot play or perform yourself?
You're not examined on the day for that.

In conclusion, exams do not provide a well-rounded evaluation of someone's ability. While they do test a
student and give them a goal to work towards, the fact that the goal is minuscule in size and they only
have one football to shoot at it with or their career is over, means that more people are judged on a
piece of paper rather than their actual performance.

We value grade letters over knowledge & we've brainwashed ourselves into justifying it. Is that not sad?

Posted by: PhoenixStudios

  I hate exams.

I think that exam should not be used to determine a student's future. The exam result doesn't mean
whether the student is clever or not. I think the school should care more about the daily performance
and see whether the students are really paying attention during class and did the homework seriously.

 Exams are stupid

Exams are just a waste of time and it gives stress to the students. They need to stay up til midnight just
to study and they will have lack of sleep. Exams only test the memory and not the knowledge of the
students. This is why exams should be abolished.

 Just Creates Pressure

Some people get very upset over exams, and it only tests you on your memory. If you have to write a
story in your exam, you might not be able to write the specifically required story, and if you have a
history exam, you might just be having a bad day. Exams only test you on one or two pieces of work,
which is bad. They also limit the subjects you can choose. I therefore conclude that exams are bad and
should not have been implicated in the first place.

 Fun of exams

Many people think that one who scores above 65-70% are intelligent,hardworking etc .But i have seen
many real life examples where students are very comfortable without exams . And many of such
students have their own business as well.The only thing i would like to abolish that there is no need of
higher education (PG,PhD) for everyone,it should be abolish

 They only asses us on our MEMORY!

To make us remember so much in a short period of time for people of our age it isn't healthy at all. We
should get our GCSE's on the understanding of our work. You cant put a time on education. They make
us rush when if I was give the exact same paper but all the time I needed I think id do way better��
and the amount of pressure they put on us is too high when they haven't even finished the subjects we
are studying😂 and we won't exactly revise in class leaving us to study all at home every night and we
have homework that has nothing to do with it. We should be assessed on the work we do in the class
room as that is a more fair assesment than being tested on how good our memory is!!

 Money, money , money

Schools who do better overall get more government funding meaning the already smart students have
an advantage over the less achieving schools. This does not give the less achieving schools a chance to
do better. This system ensures that the cycle continues for schools, this is unfair as this consequence of
worse facilities and staffing Is far more damaging than a student receiving a 'D' grade!

 Exams are unhealthy for students

When students hear of upcoming exams, it usually means that when they go home that night they feel
depressed and worried about how well they will do, and they often compare themselves to other
students and worry about if they will do as well as their friends.
When study begins, it often doesn't stop till midnight, thus leaving the student sleep deprived the next
day, it also stops the student from taking in what they are studying.
Exams stop a student from functioning properly, and often they are disappointed in their final grade, a
reason that exams are bad for the health of students and should be abolished.

 Education System is flawed

Why are tuition fees for universities rising if the education system want people to study? We live in a
society that doesn't allow abortion but looks down on teenage parents. Exams shouldn't decide your
fate. They should change this "exam" concept, it's flawed.
"Knowledge is power, and with great power comes great responsibility."

 Standardized (D)evaluation Tests

Modern pedagogy has taken a turn for standardized testing and has built a whole new educational
standard as a result: teaching children proficient test taking. Standardization does not account for
particular situations or interests but only create an environment where children are forced to study only
to take a test and quickly forget the information that has now become trivialized and redundant.

These exams do have the potential to be useful for keeping statistics on classroom efficiency but does
not nearly act in educating but only to create a negative influence on pedagogy and to ruin educational
value for students; conditioning them to cheat their way through life without even once having a taught
sense of regard for knowledge.

I would like to discuss educational standards and my perspective on how education has gone downhill,
but I would be digressing from the title topic: "Are exams necessary for students?"

 Exams are, unfortunately, looked at as an end-all solution to measuring knowledge.

There is no singularly perfect way to measure one's intellect and working knowledge on any given
subject on a broad scale, similar to how there is no singularly perfect approach to teaching an entire
year of students. This one-size-fits-all attitude employed by these institutions fails both in their original
intent and their students as it rarely ever accounts for the fact that students, like most of us, are actually
living individuals with needs, desires, and thoughts.

You will never achieve a truly accurate representation of your pupils by treating them like simple,
emotionless statistics.

 Exams should be replaced by other cognitive tests.

Exams should be fun and exciting; but in today's times, exams are pills of frustration and stress. The
concept of exams, today, is very restricted. Teachers should evaluate students in various forms such as
personal projects, research, written tests, speaking, drama, and other exciting activities where the
student feels challenged and desires to showcase his or her talent. Exams lead to comparison and
discrimination. Self-evaluation tests should be conducted, wherein the student does not feel inferior
and learns from his or her own mistakes and apply acquired knowledge in diverse forms. In this way,
students can look forward to 'exams' and enjoy the teaching and learning experience. Such tests also
support the mutual relationship amongst teachers, parents and of course, the students themselves.

No, I disagree
They really don't measure on how much we actually know, they only measure how much we actually
retain in our brain. Funny, that was an unintended, but back to the point, there are actually more ways
of learning then just by rote memorization. Literally, by doing this, you create a robot that has no
opinion; which means less of critical thinking and analysis. Sure there are ways you can test the testers
critical thinking skills, but they may not think as the graders do. The graders just go by the book and tick
off some points just because they don't have the same opinion. I feel, as a student myself in high school,
I learn things, but after I take the test, all the material that I have just learned by taking that test, have
just spilled out of my brain. There needs to be some way that we can accumulate and retain all this
information, but this does not mean by hours of poring through textbooks to take a 100 question quiz
for 1000 points. It is ridiculous. That is my opinion. Thank you for your time.

 They make no difference.

Having taken my share of exams I think everybody here will agree that the routine is always the same.
You spend months learning in a classroom then spend upwards of a week studying like a stuttering
preacher studies the bible. Then, after a month of summer, how much can you actually recall? Think
about it. These tests are outdated, like much of the education system. I won't pretend to know the final
solution to testing, but these exams are generally useless tools for honest education.

 Waste of Mine and Your Time

As a student myself, I know that exams do not assess the knowledge of the student, they assess their
memory capacity. They truly cannot measure what a student learned and how they can apply their
learning by having them write a test that briefly covers the different units of study. Rather than an
exam, students should be given an assignment that allows them to demonstrate and use what they
learned.

 Exams are not necessary for students

Exams are not necessary for students. Hasn't a student proved their abilities throughout the whole
school year? Why is it necessary to put at the end of the semester a huge test that will only be stressful
for them. Although people can argue that they are aware of the exams they should start studying
sooner. Reality is, teachers still put tests, assignments till the last couple of days of school. So really
trying to study 2-3 weeks before becomes difficult with everything else going on.

 Simply an unfair and flawed test of memory.

Exams are becoming nothing but a test of memory. You just have to simply memorize textbooks after
textbooks after textbooks. Parrots would be able to take the examinations if this keeps up. Students
may simply regurgitate everything they learnt and forget everything once they leave the examination
hall. Furthermore, exams are flawed. After all, examiners are still human beings and may well make
human errors. For example, a candidate on English Literature may be on safe ground once he quote
famous critics, but if he states his opinions, he may be considered as a pretentious and arrogant
candidate if he gets an examiner that prides himself in the thousands of quotes he knows, hence being
penalized. It is also unfair as a student's life is decided by a major exam that may last over a week or
fortnight, after studying for the past 6 or more years, as both examiners and candidates may make
careless errors whether in marking, checking, or doing the paper itself.

 Exams are stressful

They only test students memory sometimes and 3 hours must not change our enter life.They are always
stressful no matter how much a student has prepared.It is this stress that ruin our perfomance.Also
many talented and skillful students may not be better scorers in exams.So exams really does not test
one's ability