Best Way to Decide Best Students

Are exams the best way to decide who the best students in a school are? Discuss.

Exams. Every student wants to do well in them. Some work hard and burn the midnight oil while others resort to methods like cheating. Those who do well are always honored and seen as the best. Some say that exams are really the best way to determine who are the best students and feel grades should define a student. However, how accurate can we be in identifying who the best students are based solely on their exam results when everybody has different abilities?

Most of the people from the older generation or even teachers and parents see that the current formal system should be practiced in the coming generations. This is because academic competence and intelligence are not straightforward to measure and no method will fully capture the scope of a student's ability, but the fact remains that we need at least some formal system, otherwise the academic system will not work. We need divisions between ability levels and the amount of experience and knowledge students actually possess, otherwise students will be in environments unsuited to them and won't be able to learn effectively. There is no other way to divide them than by testing them in a fair and impartial manner. Exams are good at this because they are not vague - they have clear, measurable guidelines.

Exams are also a fair educational measure. The questions are the same for all students. Also, the exams scripts are marked according to a strict scheme and usually by more than one examiner. Furthermore, students do the exams at the same time and under the same condition.

However, there are some drawbacks with exams. Despite some students deserving to pass, they might be extremely nervous on the big day to the extent of making mess of the exam. Moreover, there may be other reasons, such as illness, which will also affect a student’s performance in an exam. At the same time, even though exams are closely monitored and there are severe penalties if they are found cheating, there are still students who cheat since it offers an easy way. Some students also tend to be better in doing hands on work or practical as compared to written test. Thus, these factors actually affects the on the accuracy of exams in determining the best students in the school.

Having looked at both sides, it seems clear that, even though exams a good way to decide the best students in the school but it is not good enough. Schools should also focus on the 21st century skills to determine better students because after all students’ attitude also matters.