IF YOU WERE A STUDENT, WHAT YOU PREFER?

In the last few decades, schools and universities have suggested two types of evaluation: continuous assessment or final exams. Currently, this topic is causing a debate, but I strongly believe that continuous assessment is much better.

On the one hand, the students who support the former claim to have lots of advantages. Firstly, they think that teachers evaluate more things than only exams; such as the behavior, daily work and constant assistance. Another reason is that there are different exams and you don’t risk everything in one exam. Furthermore, it’s obvious that there are fewer lessons.

On the other hand, the opponents prefer to do a final exam. The main disadvantage of continuous assessment is that you can’t either organize your timetable or choose your best technic to study. In addition, you are stressed all the term because you are constantly being examined.

All in all, I’m convinced that continuous assessment can help you to improve because clearly you are in touch with your tutor and he can correct your mistakes, making it easy for you to pass the evaluation.

Final tests; the best option to help high school students to improve their results

Final tests are nowadays the most chosen option in high school, but their more frequent use doesn't make them better, what's more, this system sometimes makes the students get confused and not work efficiently.

It is said that final tests are better than continuous assessment because the student focuses his effort in a short period of time instead of  studying during the whole assessment. For this reason, my opinion about this topic is that obviously final tests are better than continuous assessment because, as I said, the latter allow the student to have more free time during the assessment, and this is exactly what high school students need. Consequently, after this short period of hard studying, students have time to enjoy their adolescence and in addition, the results are better than in the continuous assessment because the pressure is bigger and this motivates them to get as high marks as they are able to. 

To conclude , we should remember that it is necessary to take everything into account to help to improve students' results, and the option of giving them more free time is the best option because they need  to relax from time to time to be able to study and focus all their effort in a short period of time. 

Continuous assessment versus final tests

Nowadays in most universities and high schools continuous assessment and final tests are one of the most used methods of evaluation. Both continuous assessment and final exams have advantages but personally I think that final exams are a less reliable assessment than continuous tests. 

On the one hand, continuous assessment is a good way for students to improve their marks along the course, and it is also a good method for teachers to evaluate the students’ work and improvement. That kind of assessment decreases the pupils’ pressure, which doesn’t happen with final exams.

On the other hand, continuous tests imply a larger number of exams than final ones, and what’s more, the content increases in each exam so you have to improve the last content and work hard on the new one. Nevertheless, you don’t don't risk everything in one exam but all the exams that you do along course are evaluated. Last but not least, final tests involve that students don’t work the entire course only they do it during the last week before the exam and that’s not good for them.

For all aforementioned reasons, I agree with continuous exams as a method of assessment because it allows teachers to have a global view of each student on the subject and let students learn better.

Lía Moreno 2A

Continuous assessment versus final tests_F

Nowadays we can distinguish two ways to perform the exams at school, continuous assessment or a final test. These two ways to put all your eggs in one basket are discussed by students.

On the one hand, Some students prefer to do exams continually, and therefore the syllabus isn't accumulated. Furthermore, continuous assessment helps students to be up to date with the subjects. But also, final exams have good things, allowing students to study for more time and focus on one exam for each subject.

On the other hand, other students think that continuous assessment doesn't benefit them, because it is better to perform a single test. Just like that, other students prefer to  take more than one exam, because they think that with one exam are risk everything because you can just have a bad day and lose all the work.

In conclusion, I think that the continuous assessment is the best opcion, as it prepares students and forces them to be up to date and study all subjects, and thus not leave everything to the last day.

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Carmen Caballero 2A

What about all teachers undergoing the continuous assessment?

For a while, final tests were the common technique to evaluate students' knowledge, but nowadays the main part of public schools use the continuous assessment like a method to improve the performance of their students as well as their marks, and it seems to be effective.

In the first place we have the difference of pressure that oppose each method, on the one hand final tests concentrate all the syllabus in a single exam by term whilst continuous assessment are two or three exams by term being less hard, besides continuous assessment allows students to improve their marks in case they failed one of all those exams.

Secondly, to be honest, final tests do not reflect the real knowledge of each student as they sum up a wide syllabus in five or six questions, which does not allow students to show all their knowledge and what’s more, teachers want students to sum up the entire syllabus in just one hour.

For all these reasons and many more, in my opinion, I must admit that continuous assessment is very tedious for the teacher but eventually they are worth the effort and this reflects in students’ marks.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUOUS ASSEMENT

In the last few decades universities and high schools have implanted a new system to evaluate the students, continuous assessment ,which consists  of doing little tests throughout the course to check that the students have been studying every day. However is it the best system for education?

People supporting the continuous assessment say that  it is the best method because it lets the teachers know which students study every day and  which don’t , it's for this reason  that the students who don’t study every day usually fail the exams and need  to study more. Another positive point (perk) of continuous assessment is that the teachers can see the progressive evolution of students in all tests.

Opponents of continuous assessment defend that this system causes a lot of stress and anxiety on students and this can affect their health. Furthermore, this methoddoesn't allow students to enjoy themselves since it takes up most of their time.

To sum up ,we should admit that continuous assessment is a good system but maybe dangerous for  the students' psychological health.

CONTINUOUS WORK OR JUST A TEST?

During the last years there has been much discussion about the best method to evaluate schoolers. Final examinations and continuous assessment are the two options which experts are thinking of.

On the one hand, the final tests allow students to have more time to organize their work and to study along the course because they only have to do exams once a term. However, the students who are not organized could have problems because all their work will be accumulated the days before the exams. 

On the other hand, continuous assessment offers other possibilities. Firstly, this method doesn't put the students under a great pressure as do the final exams and rewards the constant effort. Therefore students should strive every day to get everything updated. In second place this kind of evaluation allows students to be analysed more closely and to improve in their weak points.

On balance, I think that failing or passing the course can’t just depend on an examination, in my opinion the skills of the students must be observed by the teachers to be corrected along the course. For all these reasons I think that the best method is the continuous assessment.

Miguel C.G. 2A

Continuous assessment vs final exams

As we know there are students who prefer continuous assessment to final exams. There are advantages and disadvantages for each, but I think continuous assessment is better. 

First of all, continuous assessment  is better because the tutor can study the progress of each student. Furthermore, doing continuous assessment you have the tranquility of not risking everything in one test. In addition, continuous assessment is much better because it prevents  the students  from studying the last minute and they can study since the first day.

Secondly, continuous assessment has some disadvantages. Continuous assessment means doing a lot of exams. Consequently, this causes a lot of stress on the student. Maybe continuous assessment can cause a difficult relationship between students and tutors . Last but not least, continuous assessment requir  requires more study hours than final exams and students don't like this.

To sump up, I have to say that I prefer continuous assessment because with final exams you have one or two weeks with a lot of stress and then you  forget all the information you learnt.

Marta Andreu 2A