Examinations a Fair Gauge?
Examinations are a fair gauge of a student’s ability. Discuss. Scholastic tests are unjust barometers for students’ aptitudes as they are one-off gauges of understanding of the subjects, which may be unfair as psychological factors could come into play. Moreover, students with a clearer perception of the standard methods and types of questions will excel better than others, meaning that scoring well for an examination will not just be based on ability of application for a subject but rather on knowledge of examination skills.
Also, the varying views of different markers on a qualitative script may incur a range of possible grades, questioning the validity of the supposedly uniform marking scheme. As such, ability takes a backseat to conditioning. However, a formal stable system is still required for sectoring the society into their different intellectual strata. Every student sits for the same paper with similar schedules, thus the test is still considered impartial on a constricted level. Examinations are not fair as they are one-off opportunities for students to prove themselves.
Students prone to panic will be put at a great disadvantage, as these psychological factors will cause these students to be nervous and blank out during the examination, sabotaging their performance and causing them to score badly despite their sufficient preparation and adequate knowledge. The test will thus be reflecting a distorted gauge of ability. Also, others not so well prepared might even score better as a consequence, reflecting the unfairness of this system of education and of using one-off examinations as barometers to test the students’ understanding.
It would thus be much fairer should examinations be carried out in an extended period of time separated into various components, where the students’ potentials, aptitudes and attitudes can be more accurately judged and rewarded. This system of education encourages practicing past year papers aimed to master these examinations, and not so the subject. Students are asked to familiarize themselves with the standard methods of answering repeated types of questions originally set with the intention of testing a student’s response to an unexpected problem. This irony of predicting and practicing uestions, which are not supposed to be expected in the first place, sheds light on how tests are used to assess the handling of test skills rather than the plain understanding of subjects, which is twisted in the ideology of education. Other students not having acquired these examination skills despite possessing the depth of the subject will still fare worse than those who lack in understanding but master the examination skills and apply the content in a fixed and conditioned manner. Examinations are thus unfair, as the marking scheme does not only include ability as the criteria for good grades.
This system also does not fully encourage critical analysis and application, which are much needed qualities for the working world. Examinations on qualitative papers such as literature or art are also not easy to measure in terms of marks unlike quantitative papers such as mathematics. Qualitative papers are subjective, as personal opinions are required and everyone is bound to have different outlooks. These differing viewpoints of markers would cause a great range of possible marks for the very same script, blurring the lines between right and wrong.
Perceptions would thus cause the marking scheme to be rather unstable, and not only aptitude would be factoring the resulting grade achieved. Luck would be part of the picture, showing us how examinations would then be a fallacy to the promise of equality. The differing styles schools adopt to teach the students also play a part in how they perform at the end of their learning journey in the major international examinations. Different tips and tricks teachers impart to students will have a great impact on the grades at the end. Thus, teachers are a factor in how well the students do in the examinations.
The teacher is responsible for bringing out the qualities required and building upon the skills, creating a holistic, balanced education for the child. Everyone has the ability to score well in the examination. It is just a matter of whether it is brought out or not. This thus creates the leverage some students hold above the rest, which raises irony in the idea of equality in examinations. If the preparation is not fair in itself, obviously, the result will thus definitely differ accordingly. It is then not a matter of ability and potential anymore, but rather the effect brought out by teachers.
Examination is thus unfair as a gauge of ability. However, a formal system of separating students into their different stages of potential and understanding is still required in the society to ensure that careers in the future will be properly executed to grant the best economical outcome with full utilization of human resources. This system is fair, as everyone sits for the same paper with the same schedule so not one person gets extra time to study for the examinations, or get to breathe better air or see better greenery to achieve higher grades.
The constant physical factors involved in a sitting thus ensure equality reigns in the examination hall. Also, cheating is heavily penalized in this competitive learning arena, so everyone sits for the examination with the facts and figures all in their heads and the application skills all picked up within them already, thus their source of inspiration for the subjective papers and the pool of knowledge they get their examples and content from all resonates from within, which presents to us equality as no one gets extra help in completing the questions.
Although examinations are made as fair as possible, the extent of it is very restricted, as ability is something unique and individual with no two persons the same, thus causing inequality in the results of the examinations.
