Are examinations a good form of assessment?

Tests and examinations have been adopted by many schools in many countries as a method to assess students' progress and abilities since a long time ago. As society progresses, mindsets change. Some people have came to believe that examinations are not a fair assessment on students' capabilities. However, I believe that even if examinations cannot perfectly assess ones strengths and abilities, it is the only viable and effective method we have found so far.

I concede that examinations have their limits. It is really difficult if not impossible to grasp a student's creativity, ambition and eagerness purely from an examination. Conventional exams cannot measure a whole range of qualities, strengths and capacities that matter in life. For example, communication skills and passion which are important in real life cannot be tested through exams. At best, exams are only a reflection of students' academic capabilities.

I say a reflection because exams are not fair academic assessments in many ways. Exams impose a huge amount of stress on students. There are some students who cannot deal with this stress and end up under-performing during an exam. Or in other cases, it is simply bad luck that one does not do well during an exam although one usually performs quite well. Parents argue that exams like the Primary School Leaving Examination and the O-levels are especially unfair for late bloomers. Students who mature earlier can focus better on their studies and will no doubt have an advantage over the rest. This concern is understandable. Yet, these "unfairness" are unavoidable.

There is no such thing as a totally fair assessment. No assessment is perfect. Examinations are the closest we can go to achieving a fair assessment. If nothing else, an exam can at least measure how well a student has grasped facts, knowledge or skills in a specific area at a specific point of time. A students' performance in an exam can also reflect his ability to cope with stress and his time management skills to a certain extent. The aim of examinations is to fairly assess each student's academic capability. So non-academic abilities are taken into account separately.

Much have been done to provide a better assessments for students. Major examinations are split into smaller quizzes and tests. Written papers are diversified into oral presentations, group works and project works. By diversifying the assessment methods we use, we are hoping to give a fairer and more all-rounded assessment of students' abilities. However, these diversified methods of assessment are too troublesome and hard to manage or standardize. Thus, in order to achieve standard and controlled conditions for major assessments, examinations must still be used. The only reason examinations are not "scrapped" despite its various limitations is because we have no better form of assessment to adopt.

In conclusion, although examinations are not perfectly fair, it is something we cannot do without. We can try to diversify our forms of assessment, but in the end, we still need to fall back on the students' examinations results to determine their capabilities. Examinations have worked well as a form of assessment so far despite its limitations and thus, should continue to be adopted as a major form of assessment on students' capabilities, strengths and skills.