Exams are important tool to help teachers measure their students’ progress. Regarding this issue, some people insist that having an exam takes away students’ time to develop their true talents since it takes a lot of time to study. However, in my opinion, it significantly enhances students’ study efficiency by allowing them to be accustomed to a good study habit and making them to actively participate in their classes.
Most importantly, exams help students cultivate desirable habit of learning for the rest of their lives. To many students, their grades count a lot since it is directly related to their post-secondary institution which accepts student based largely on their school marks. Because of this, when required to write an exam, students have to inevitably review what they have learned in the class and make up for the loss to perform well in the exam. For instance, when I was in high school, my school had four official exams each year. Since my goal university was one of the top ones, I had to work so hard that I could get a high mark in the exam. Since I realized through my initial failure that cramming for an exam is too tough to manage, I started to brush up on what I learned in each class and never skipped the lectures. The habit I acquired from preparing for an exam still helps me a lot in that it enables me to take responsibility for my work.
Another reason why exam is crucial for students is that it makes them to participate well in their classes. Usually, professors make the test out of class materials and thus, when students do not pay attention in class and participate in class activity, they can not successfully write the test. According to the recent study released by the Korean Ministry of Education, students in class with mandatory final exams outdo those in class without official test. It also added that when the exams were required to take, students asked more questions to their professors and form much more study groups to discuss and supplement their learning. In brief, asking students to write the exams motivates and boosts students’ morale to study harder in the class.
Thus, exams are beneficial for students in that it not only helps students to adopt the good study habit, it also allows them to actively participate and pay attention in class. With the world becoming more competitive, students with good study habit are more likely to succeed and grow into a desirable man in this society.