By Flora Lepage, Year 11
Tests are the word that all students dread hearing from their teachers, but unfortunately have to experience at least once a week throughout the school year. Tests are the method that schools use to measure a student’s strength or capacity in each subject, but is it truly the best method? The answer that most students would give is no, and not only are they correct, but they are also backed up by science. There have been hundreds of reports and investigations that have proved that tests do more harm than good.
Test anxiety is most commonly seen in classrooms during tests, but in some cases this anxiety can remain with a student for an extended period, affecting their daily lives and the way they study. Most adults perceive test anxiety as the common nervousness that any person would feel before entering their test or exam, but in reality, it is a lot more severe and often overlooked. This anxiety can truly harm students, to the point where they can lose motivation to study, make no effort in school and simply burn out. It is fed into our minds from a very early age that to succeed in life we need good grades, and we begin to determine our worth depending on these grades.
A report shows that worldwide test anxiety affects more than 60% of all students starting from kindergarten through to university. This number is dangerously high and shows how test anxiety is not only present in higher education but also in young students. This simply shows how schools put pressure on us at an early age and does not cease until we follow through with our education. There are multiple different ways that our knowledge can be measured that are not six-page long summaries of the units. For example, there could be fewer tests that count for less of the grade and instead, the teacher could look at the student’s interest, work, and development in the specific subject.
We are expected to know everything already and have our entire future based on our performance in school when our brains are not yet fully developed. The concept of tests is fundamental, but the major issue is how schools, Ecolint included, rely on tests as the main way of grading and defining their students.
