The Importance Of Finals Exams

Most students view taking finals exams as a dreadful experience. They undergo different levels of anxiety, tension and worrying. For centuries, getting and pursuing knowledge has not changed. A multi-level system is applied where students learn and progress in their educational career. Exams are used for assessing the students in a competitive arena throughout this system. According to their results, students either move forward to a higher level or repeat their academic year.

A lot of controversy has been raised on the importance of these finals exams, both inside the educational circles and outside. Exams improve the accountability of students and schools. Knowledge is cumulative, so a student doing poor in very early stages can end up behind indefinitely. It is rather difficult to make a precise judgment or give a clear stand on whether it is viable to abolish or move ahead with this system. All views have elements of objectivity on their diverse claims as such; pros and cons carry views that must be taken into account.

Staunch supporters of finals exams assert that the examination system is essential for the equal and unbiased assessment of students all over a given nation. This allows for tracking both each student's performance and the overall educational apparatus. Accordingly, plans are executed and laid out for future projections. finals exams also motivate students to really learn the material rather than just memorize for tests. Also based on this system, each student has a report with his gained marks or grades from exams. In this manner, a full insight into each student's attained knowledge and capabilities is feasible. Through this exam system and its results, educationist can make a good appraisal of educational materials in current usage, revising the necessary ones while keeping the mastered ones. Using this method allows students to progress from basic grade levels to college.

Meanwhile, opponents of these finals exams claim that there is a psychological toll to this system. Here, the stress and anxiety generated by the examination process might alter a student's attitude and overall view on the whole learning system. All these accumulated factors in a student's mind lead him to question the whole worthiness of studying. Students in failing exams will be punished. Fear of failure aggravates this deep sense even further. Standardized final exams can be biased and unfair. Also, they single out the unfairness and injustice of this system by allowing exams to be the sole indicator of failure or success for students' educational voyage. Exams lessen the flexibility of teachers. Another aspect relevant to these exams is the results gained for some students. Due to some unexpected personal problems, sudden illness or simply just a headache, a student might not gain good results judging on his yearlong overall performance. Consequently, his final exam grades do not truly reflect his standard.

Learning material for tests means other material getting less attention. finals exams force students to resort to memorizing as a habit. Any student who totally relies on his memorizing abilities finds exams a perfect springboard to achieving very good markings. However this method leads the student to be lacking the essentials of logic in the process.