All the exams or tests reward accolades based on how student performed. They give out the awards to the students who got the highest score in the test. Although achievement is an important factor to consider when giving awards, I personally believe that effort must be the prior reason to choose who receives the awards, because effort motivates the students to gain higher knowledge as well as leading the students to successful life in the future.
To begin with, students must receive the accolades based on how much effort they put in, because it is the most fundamental factor that motivates the students to go into higher education and earn much more knowledge. From my personal experience, when I was in 9th grade, my friend, Joe, always stayed at the school's library studying for the final test. My advisory teacher saw Joe studying really hard and putting a lot of effort into the final exam. The teacher was really surprised of the fact that he was actually studying, because Joe usually is not a guy who would sit in one place and study for 6 hours straight. Mr. Kiyoi, the teacher, informed to all class after the final test about Joe's hard work and gave a huge candy box to Joe. Joe realized that achievement is not the only thing that matters, but effort as well. He was well motivated from that experience and now is the one who studys the hardest.
Not only it acts as a motivation, efforts also brings the success to the students. Because students spend a lot of time studying and putting efforts into it, they actually learn something from the studying. Although they may not learn the whole contents, they obviously learn something from it. Then they starts to learn what would be the better way to study and finds the best method for them to study. Again with the example of Joe, he actually became the one of the students who received the highest grade among 600 students at the grade level. This was due to the effort and the motivation. He became the most successful student who graduated from the school.
To sum up my points, effort should be the first and most important criteria when give prizes to students. As I mentioned earlier, effort should be the prior reasons, because effort comes before than achievement. It is effort, therefore the achievement, not the other way around.
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