task 2< written vs practical>
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:40 am
In the modern world, there are movements away from written exams to practical assessments.
Discuss advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
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Over the last few decades, the ways that educational institutions assess students’ academic performance have significantly changed the world over. As such, in recent days, there is a trend of assessing students’ abilities by practical assessments than written test. Such method has both advantages and disadvantages, and this essay will discuss about them.
On the one hand, the significant benefit of practical test is that it enables to check clear understanding of the concepts, whereas in written exams, assessments are based on learner’s memory capability. For example, in a Biology exam, any person can learn and write about a frog, but to cut and identify the body parts needs some practical understanding. From this it is clear that exam centres are able to test the test taker's knowledge exactly, and thus beneficial to the institutes.
On the other hand, one of the substantial drawbacks of such system is the test centres’ huge investment of money. This means to conduct practical assessments, it is necessary to hold big laboratories and more equipment. For instance, to test the software programming skills, computers with up-to-date facilities are mandatory. This is not in the case of written test where just a room with a pen and paper would be enough. From this example, it is understandable that there are some negatives associated with changing from written to practical test.
To sum up, checking exact student’s understanding of subject and high financial investment are the benefit and drawback of this altering way of students ‘assessment. In my opinion, education centres have to find a viable way to assess students’ level of understanding either by writing or conducting practical evaluations.
Discuss advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
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Over the last few decades, the ways that educational institutions assess students’ academic performance have significantly changed the world over. As such, in recent days, there is a trend of assessing students’ abilities by practical assessments than written test. Such method has both advantages and disadvantages, and this essay will discuss about them.
On the one hand, the significant benefit of practical test is that it enables to check clear understanding of the concepts, whereas in written exams, assessments are based on learner’s memory capability. For example, in a Biology exam, any person can learn and write about a frog, but to cut and identify the body parts needs some practical understanding. From this it is clear that exam centres are able to test the test taker's knowledge exactly, and thus beneficial to the institutes.
On the other hand, one of the substantial drawbacks of such system is the test centres’ huge investment of money. This means to conduct practical assessments, it is necessary to hold big laboratories and more equipment. For instance, to test the software programming skills, computers with up-to-date facilities are mandatory. This is not in the case of written test where just a room with a pen and paper would be enough. From this example, it is understandable that there are some negatives associated with changing from written to practical test.
To sum up, checking exact student’s understanding of subject and high financial investment are the benefit and drawback of this altering way of students ‘assessment. In my opinion, education centres have to find a viable way to assess students’ level of understanding either by writing or conducting practical evaluations.