The General Goal of Exams

Requiring students to pass a standardized test to receive a high school diploma will not improve the educational standards or academic achievement in our schools. Every year students have to take tests to prove that they remember what they have learned that year and each year hundreds of students have panic attacks, blackouts, stress and they fail. I think it is a shame that because of the society that we live in these people will have to re-do their exams or even re-do the whole year. Are these exams really necessary? We already have to take a huge amount of tests during the whole year and failing one or two exams doesn't mean that you are dumb it could be bad luck.
   

    First of all, I don't think that we need exams because we already have to take lots of tests during the year. Can't teachers just base their final point on this? It seems like we take hundreds of tests per year, then you still have all the other exercises that count towards your final grade and extra tasks and projects. And on top of that, you have to take standardized exams! It's known that tests can cause panic attacks and burnouts because of excessive pressure and studying and with all of the work we are already doing it just doesn't seem necessary to add more just to prove that we've been learning.

    If a student fails their exams does it mean that he/she doesn't have the required knowledge? Not at all, it is possible that the student suffered from the consequences of stress or anxiety during their preparation of the exam or whilst taking the exam. It is definitely a shame that those students probably will have to re-do their exams or even the whole year just because tests give them anxiety or they just aren't good at taking tests. Because tests examine your ability to take tests and not just test your knowledge on the subject it can seem impossible to be able to succeed. Trick questions and almost correct answers only add to the preexisting stress.

    Teachers will say that exams are necessary because they have to know their students' progress. But not even a score will tell them if they need to review certain concepts or move forward. It can provide hints, but only the student truly knows. Chance and luck do just as much on tests as prior knowledge does.

    The general goal of exams is testing the abilities of the students and how much they have learned. The pressure that is put on students to make sure that they pass their exams makes it even more difficult to pass them. It's not a good idea to make students pass a standardized test to get a high school diploma because tests don't truly show the students' work, commitment, and knowledge that deem them worthy of obtaining this and this will not improve the educational standards or academic achievement in our schools because we all understand the importance of this goal and already work as hard as we can to achieve it.