There is a controversy over whether examinations are necessarily needed for students to study. Some people argue that exams are not encouraging since they make students feel stressed out and thus hinder students from learning harder. In contrast, I strongly believe that exams encourage students to learn since it is a stimulus for studying hard and it is an objective evaluation to know one's level.
First of all, exams have a positive effect on students' learning by giving them a positive stimulus. This is because students would like to get a good grade on the test and receive recognition from their teacher, parents and friends. Most students, even students who usually do not study, cram the exams before the midterms and finals. A recent study best illustrates this point. Researchers divide students into two groups. After giving each groups an English vocabulary list and making them memorize it for twenty minutes; they conduct the quiz. The average grade of the one group who was been told in advance that there would be a test was much higher than the grade of the other group who was not warned before the test. It turned out that the students in the first group concentrated on studying vocabularies while the other students felt idle and not worried about the test. That is the existence of the exams affect students' attitude toward learning.
Second, Exam is a good opportunity that students can exactly know about their level in their learning. This is because exams let students acknowledge which part they are good at and which part they need to improve more. Thanks to such feedback, students would study the weak point harder for a better understanding. For instance, when I took an English speaking course in college, my professor had a test that students should interview in English with him. At first, the thought pressure/force/demand/anxiety (in English, we don’t use thought in this case) or thinking about speaking English in front… of speaking English in front of him gave me too much pressure. However, after the test he could accurately point out my mistakes such as tail-tones that I did not notice. If I had not been for the speaking test, I would have not known my mistaken pronunciation. As a result, I am practicing to get rid of the tail tones and it is improving.
In conclusion, I definitely agree that an exam is a helpful tool for students since they stimulate students to focus on studying more and students realize themselves if they are keeping with the class and the topic. On the whole, students need exams that play a pivotal role on learning to develop the students' studying.