Examinations are a necessary evil, and feedback is the most valuable thing they offer.
The examination process requires work but it allows both sides of the teaching dialog to point to data when describing why a certain grade was awarded. Further discussion along these lines appears in Grade and Evaluation Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. Yet without it the crude measure grades give of initiative and accomplishment seems totally arbitrary due to the difficulty of communicating about what has been observed in the learner's work. The above provides a bit of justification for the system described by Learning Accomplished and Self Test .