Exams Ought to be Abolished from the Education System

Thank you for providing a lot of arguments again, we should both have strong points when we come to the concluding round. China forces children to do 9 hour examinations, unsurprisingly this had lead to students committing suicide. The expectations on Chinese children are much higher, such exams cause a huge amount of stress. Thankfully exams in the U.K. typically last an hour or two, and there is often time to do some last minute revision before the next one. Sadly students in Britain have also killed their self due to the feelings of depression, hopelessness and fear of failure before taking their exams, or as a result of failing an exam. A huge number of students (over 140,000) aged 16 -18 are taking psychiatric drugs such as Prozac to inflate their resuts. [1] This shows that students are not adequately taught how to deal with stress, and are being given excessive amounts of homework which is all graded, supposedly for their benefit, however student don't feel grades are for them because they can't possibly try their best unless they sacrifice all their free time. The lesson many learn is to do the bare minimum, those who don't will probably not have friends to support them. [1] https://www.wsws.org... Exams only test what is taught in lessons, unless you are doing higher education. Provided students listen and understand what is being taught, they have nothing to worry about. Teachers are happy to help their students understand things in class and after class, but at the age of 16 they are expected to do research, and will be aware of this. Also teachers often tell their students when they should start their revising so they don't start too early or too late, which reduces stress. The reason students may dread exams more than coursework is because an exam is worth a greater percentage of the final grade. If this is the only reason why students are stressed by them it could be better to have more exams, spread out, and make each worth a low percentage like with coursework. Abolishing exams will cause more students to pay less attention in class, become inconsiderate, and ultimately lead to them wasting their time and not being able to handle whatever life throws at them later in life. It is unrealistic to expect students to learn things they have not heard of. The physics paper I had to retake was due to there being questions regarding things that I wasn't made aware of in class. This issue has only happened once to me, and was fixed quickly. Mistakes can and will always happen whether there are exams or not, it is how they are dealt with that matter, and mine were dealt with very well. Many companies like Argos want employees to work well in a group, and will choose candidates based on how well they perform in group tasks after passing an initial interview. It would make sense to make "presentation skills" a G.C.S.E. there is no need to abolish exams. Assessing students relative to their peers ensures a balanced distribution of academic results. It seems like a good system to me but even if it isn't I'm not sure how this supports your argument because a different grading system could be used - exams do not need to be abolished for this reason. Coursework, group work, presentations all have their merits, and often involve researching new material. Exams test more basic knowledge, this is equally important. Without a basic understanding it will be harder to understand more complex things. Exams encourage students to grasp this basic knowledge. I drew your attention to the difference between tests and exams because a source you used, used the word "test" instead of "exam" which was misleading. The true number of people cheating in exams is just 0.03% [2]. In classroom tests where it possible to sit beside friends, the number of people cheating will be significantly higher i.e. the figure you quoted. [2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk... When students cheat on coursework they may pay a company to do their essay for them, bully someone into doing it for them or put pressure on friends to give too much assistance to play longer and end up getting them into trouble. Various methods can be used to cheat in exams; these cheaters won't harm anyone, and would at least make good notes. This doesn't mean we should only have exams. Coursework is essential because it allows students to think, research, and learn at a higher level. Exams are necessary but for different reasons namely to grasp the basics needed to understand more complicated things. Abolishing exams will have a negative impact. Many thanks for reading