Question:
Children have more and more tests and exams to do at school, sometimes starting from the age of 5 or 6, right up until the age of 18. What are the advantages and disadvantages of making children do exams?
Answer:
These days, tests and exams become common method of assessing knowledge of pupils at schools in modern educational system. Moreover, the government adds more and more tests in primary schools every year. However, a growing number of people argue that this situation should be changed; it is not suitable for immature minds, because it could affect to their psychological conditions in negative way. In this essay I will closer to pros and cons of this issue and draw some conclusions.
One of the main advantage of exams at school is that the real knowledge of a child can be assessed. Obviously, teacher can easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of a pupil knowledge. After that, teacher can emphasize on particular topic while teaching process. It can make the educational system more complex and qualified overall.
Another advantage of exams is that they can prepare children to tough university life. By this, I mean that during studying at university, students usually have to pass many exams and papers before the deadlines, therefore they may have a lot pressure on them, which may lead to stress. Usually many students give up their universities due to these problems.
Main disadvantage is that many children may be not ready for pressure like exams and tests, especially in primary schools. In my country, we have a very important exam after the 11th class to pass to national universities. If you couldn`t pass that exam, you may be called to military duty for two years. Therefore, many pupils who couldn’t pass that exams commit suicides.
To sum up, modern educational system uses tests and exams for assessing the children`s knowledge all over the world. In my opinion, advantages outweigh disadvantages in this issue, however government should control the number of tests that pupil pass during the school life to avoid extreme situations like suicides among children.