Exams: Good or Bad?

Dear Sir/Madam, please rate my essay on a scale from 1 to 9. This is an IELTS essay. Thanks in advance.

Exams have long been regarded as the best tool for measuring students’ performance. Whether they are the best method of assessing students’ performance still remains a question. I would argue that the exam method should be tailored to each individual student’s character.

There is no denying that students perform better in continuous assessments if they have good self-discipline. This kind of people have a strong sense of urgency. They always make sure that they perform consistently well in continuous assessment. On the other hand, students who do not have good self-discipline will struggle with continuous assessment as their habits of procrastination will get in the way of them performing well in each continuous assessment.

That said, it does not mean that students who do not have good self-discipline will necessarily perform any worse in an exam than students who have great self-discipline. The former probably prefer putting all their concentration to an exam to diverting their concentration to different assessments, as the former’s sense of urgency tends only to pick up near an exam period that is on a one-off basis. Merely because students study at the last minute does not mean that their understanding of a topic will not be as good as students who do consistent studying. On the other hand, students who have good self-discipline and study consistently may also have a burnout near an exam period, thereby not performing as well as they should have.

In conclusion, I think that neither exams nor continuous assessment is the best tool for measuring students’ performance and that the exam method should be tailored to each individual student’s character.

TOEFL listening lectures: Which designer did not work at the Bauhaus?

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Hi Leong, welcome to the forum. I think your command of English is pretty good and your writing is generally clear and understandable, though you do have a few odd sounding phrases. Your essay did not really seem to address the topic that well though. Your main points are 1. Self-disciplined students perform better under a continuous assessment scheme. 2. Students without self discipline may perform as well as disciplined students on standard exams. This doesn’t really say which method is more appropriate. I would think the most appropriate method is the one that more accurately measures every student’s understanding of the lesson, but you never really get into this. Overall, I would rate this a band 6.

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Hi, Im new in this platform. Could you evaluate my essay if it is possible.Thanks in advance
Some people believe that exams are an inappropriate way of measuring students’ performance and should be replaced by continuous assessment. Do you agree or disagree with this view?

According to some individuals’ viewpoint, in order to assess the students’ level or ability, examinations are not the reasonable and reliable method to resort to. Evaluation may be hugely more convenient if they their scores and progress will be taken into account constantly. I extremely support this mentality and, in this essay, will be argued the benefits and justifications to prove the helpful effects of systematic change.

First of all, even thought, the exams are brought into our lives to receive the most equal assessment, the restricted time of tests are not the effective and productive approach to decide with view of the peoples’ progress. For instance, if a high school child who has been preparing for his university test for almost full of 4 years successfully and could not achieve his purposed score due to he was having a headache just prior to the test day, how that is acceptable by authorities to judge him on this particular day.

Apart from that, the certain places in which standards the candidates are gathered, also can be influenced in term of various mood and stress level on applicant psychologically. Furthermore, collecting all the subjects and themes in separate sections for people so that they can reply them under determined duration is quite challenging to managed to. Thus, chance plays significant role in this aspect if the person will not come across with the topics, he is not familiar with.

In conclusion, in my personal view, regardless of the fact that the evaluation system of education all around the world acknowledged as a failure, pioneers representatives of educationalist can not change this procedure because of the unpredicted consequences of the further occurrences.

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Hello Burak and welcome to our forum! Let’s take a detailed look at your essay, bit by bit.

examinations are not the reasonable and reliable method to resort to.

It should be either “not a reasonable and reliable method” or “not the most reasonable and reliable method.” Both mean pretty much the same thing – it’s just the usage of “a” vs “the” that has its small differences. You can solve this test to practice a bit more: the vs. a - English Test | english.best

Evaluation may be hugely more convenient if they their scores and progress will be taken into account constantly.

I can’t say I understand what you want to say with this sentence. From the rest of the context, I think you’re trying to say that a particular student’s circumstances should be taken into account.

First, the choice of words. “Hugely more” can sound a little informal, so I would go with “much more,” especially since your next word is “convenient.” Convenience is not something that makes a big difference (according to Merriam Webster, one of its definitions is "freedom from discomfort). Using “hugely” with it can sound a little jarring.

Then again, I wouldn’t use the word “convenient” at all, because in this context, it means that evaluation may be easier. From the rest of your essay, I think what you’re getting at is that it may be better in the sense that it offers a more complete overview of a student’s skills and abilities. Let’s say, “Evaluation would be much more credible if a student’s circumstances were taken into account.”

At least, that’s what I gather, because the rest of the sentence doesn’t make any sense at all: "…if they their scores and progress will be taken into account constantly. " Did you mean to erase “they” here? It seems completely out of place.

Another very important thing here, which I’ve noticed here: you’re not using conditional sentences correctly. You say, “if their scores and progress will be taken into account constantly.” But we’re talking about a theoretical possibility: either “if their scores are taken into account constantly,” for something that can happen right now, or “if their scores were to be taken into account constantly,” for something that is completely theoretical here.

To conclude, the whole sentence should probably be rewritten from scratch. Try something like what I’ve written above: “Evaluation would be much more credible if a student’s circumstances were taken into account.”

I extremely support this mentality and, in this essay, will be argued the benefits and justifications to prove the helpful effects of systematic change.

Active vs. passive voice here. You “extremely support” this in active voice, but “will be argued” is passive – but it shouldn’t be, because you’re already saying you’re doing it, not that it’s done by you. It should be “I extremely support this [way of thinking] (sounds better, means the same), and will argue the benefits and justifications that prove the helpful effects of systematic change in this essay.”

Another thing that comes up more than once in your essay, but this is a good example: you use very long sentences. There’s no need for this. You often get lost midway through the sentence, start mixing up tenses, and put words in wrong places. Sure, longer sentences can be impressive, but only when done right. There is nothing bad about using shorter, better defined sentences to make your point. They are often easier to read. We’ll come back to this later, when we get to some other examples.

First of all, even thought

I think you mean “though.” Thought is the product of thinking. “Though” introduces a subordinate clause (which you’re doing here). Also there’s no need for that next comma.

even though the exams are brought into our lives to receive the most equal assessment,

(Notice the deleted comma and correction to “though”) Exams can’t receive the most equal assessment. Students are receiving assessment. Exams can, however, offer it. Just replace :slight_smile:

the restricted time of tests are not the effective and productive approach to decide with view of the peoples’ progress.

Several things: time is singular, are is used for plural. In other words: “the restricted time of tests is not…” But also, it’s not an effective approach, not the. Refer to the previously linked test (practicing these differences helps a lot!)

“to decide with view of the peoples’ progress” is completely wrong. First the smallest mistake: "peoples’ " is the plural possessive form, which is used to refer to the possessive of multiple people groups. A correct way to use this form would be something like, “this continent’s native peoples’ heritage is innumerable.” Here, it’s just one group of people, all of them students, meaning you should use “people’s.”

“With view” doesn’t make any sense in this context. Are you trying to say “to decide people’s progress”? Because that would make more sense without the unnecessary words. Shorter sentences are often easier to read (and harder to make mistakes in).

For instance, if a high school child who has been preparing for his university test for almost full of 4 years successfully and could not achieve his purposed score due to he was having a headache just prior to the test day, how that is acceptable by authorities to judge him on this particular day.

Very long sentence, riddled with mistakes. A great example of why you should write in shorter, more concise sentences. I understand what you mean, but this would definitely bring your score down.

Let’s chop it up.

“For instance, a high school child has been successfully preparing for his university test for almost four years.” (“full of” is completely unnecessary here – also notice how I’ve rearranged the words).

“However, he could not achieve the score he wanted, because he had a headache just before the test.” (Also notice how I’ve changed “purposed score” to “score he wanted.” The second is much more common in the English language and doesn’t sound strange. I’ve also broken the sentence into two, separated by the comma. I won’t go into details about why “due to” was not a good choice here, but if you want to, I can address it later.)

“How is it acceptable that the authorities judge him on this particular day?” (You’re posing a question, so there should be a question mark. That’s why I’ve changed the order of the words – “how that is acceptable” doesn’t make sense in this context. I’ve changed “by authorities” too because it completely changes the meaning of your sentence in a way that you don’t want.)

Apart from that, the certain places in which standards the candidates are gathered, also can be influenced in term of various mood and stress level on applicant psychologically.

Again not sure I completely understand your sentence, but going off the rest… You have a redundant comma, a redundant “the” and it should be “in terms of” – that’s a phrase which is always used this way, there’s no singular form of this, only plural.

That sentence should become, “Apart from that, certain places in which candidates are gathered can also be influenced in terms of various moods and stress levels that affect the applicant psychologically.”

I changed it this way because I have no idea what “in which standards” was supposed to mean here.

Furthermore, collecting all the subjects and themes in separate sections for people so that they can reply them under determined duration is quite challenging to managed to.

Long sentence, strange passive voice usage… Sure, when done correctly, it can sound good, but this is not done correctly.

Let’s rearrange this a bit. “Furthermore, collecting all the subjects in separate sections so that people can answer them within a certain time frame can be quite challenging to manage.” (“themes” was a little redundant since you already mentioned “subjects” and the sentence is long enough as it is. “Reply them” is completely incorrect – it should be “reply to them,” but it can’t be used here, because “reply” usually refers to answering to someone directly, and here you’re just answering a test question, which is not a person. “Under determined duration” is what I scrapped completely and replaced with “within a certain time frame” because “determined duration” is not used in this context. “Quite challenging to managed to” is also wrong – something can be quite challenging to do, there’s no need to flip it into the past tense and also add “to” without any reason.)

Thus, chance plays significant role in this aspect if the person will not come across with the topics, he is not familiar with.

“Chance plays a significant role.” But another sentence that can be shortened. “Chance plays a significant role, so that the person does not come across the topics he is not familiar with.” Notice the omitted comma, the change from “will” to “does” (no need for future, this is the present tense, since you say that chance plays which is also in the present tense), and the “aspect” part is just unnecessary.

In conclusion, in my personal view, regardless of the fact that the evaluation system of education all around the world acknowledged as a failure, pioneers representatives of educationalist can not change this procedure because of the unpredicted consequences of the further occurrences.

Extremely and unnecessarily long sentence.

“In conclusion, the worldwide educational evaluation system is acknowledged to be a failure. However, pioneer representatives of educationalists cannot change it, due to the unpredictable consequences.”

To sum it all up

This went on for a lot longer than I expected. Please let me know if you have any questions. Don’t let these comments discourage you! It’s better that people tell you what you can do better than to make mistakes where it counts. There are things that I didn’t explain in detail, but that’s because this would have been even longer and harder to read.

Shorter sentences, more to the point, try not to mix up active and passive voices. You have a decent vocabulary, but you should use it more wisely because sometimes there is no need for uncommon words. Try to use these tips in another essay and let’s see how you do! Good luck!

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Hi Sumejja, speaking frankly, I have never had my essays checked. So it was the first time and as you’ve already mentioned Im disappointed a little. But I really appreciate your effort and time. Sorry to bother you with this long essay and eternal mistakes(( I hope, in the next trial I will do better and will be grateful to assess them with you again. Thank you so much again for your endeavour.

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Please don’t apologize! We’re here to help you improve. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy checking essays and explaining mistakes – that’s how I learned back when I was studying! I’m looking forward to your next essays. You’re definitely on the right track, and having your work checked can only help.

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How often do you use the phrase “Let’s chop it up” meaning “Let’s talk about it”?

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I’ve never heard it.