Prompt: Many people believe that formal "pen and paper" examination are not the best method of assessing educational achievement. What is your view of examinations?

To my knowledge, there are always topics for discussion in today's education, and one topical issue is regarding the real efficiency of examinations using pen and paper. To be more precise, some people hold a strong view suggesting that examination plays a major part in measuring the ability of students. However, I suppose that, with the high requirements from society and labour market, we need to reconsider the real role of examinations. Ċ To begin with, more often than not, people having an excellent result in an exam often accomplish the other tasks easier. For example students that scored a high mark in an IQ test tend to perform better in subjects related to science, mathematics and statistics. Nevertheless, overusing examinations for evaluation can lead to some negative consequences. Some "cram schools" are established to not only make prediction about questions of assessments but also give opportunities for students to practice taking exams. Thus, the educational system creates generations that do not have any abilities in being creative. All they are taught is to mimic behaviours that is required for the examination. Ċ Additionally, many successful people in real life did fail some exams. This can be explained by their anxiety and the lack of strategies on preparing for the exams. In specific, a range of skills, leadership, team-working, management, for instance, have been neglected in traditional evaluations as well as never considered carefully in education standards. Ċ To put it in a nutshell, there is no denying the benefit of examination methods. Having said that, the real achievement of these methods should be assessed clearly and accurately. I would like to emphasize and reiterate that the hard competition in the global world requires that we revolutionize the education system and put particular emphasis on the way we measure the ability of our students.