p.104 #3 first draft 200902461 Lee Su A

 

Testing in school

 

         Students are usually being stressful when the mid-term or final exams come and it is also an embarrassing situation when the test paper is announced. However, we always take exams almost from the elementary school to the university, and maybe after that such as getting jobs. It's necessary for school to have tests because it can be a standard for evaluating students. Yet, there are some problems about testing in school, especially in Korea.

 

         Some of the aspects, testing in school can't be an exact evaluation system. Most of the cases, all exam questions are multiple choice.  Actually, it can be the most reasonable way to evaluate students that how much they spend time to prepare for the exam. It is not only easy, but also fair way to grade for school. because students can just choose the answer among the five questions. Even though they do not know the answer, they can check the marks by just choosing one and sometimes, the number that is chosen can be the true answer. In this kind of situation, we cannot say that it is an objective evaluating system. In addition, there's a possibility that students are set in conventional way of thinking, it can lower the students' ability to think. In Korea, students have only few essay questions. Even the entrance exam for the university is also multiple choices. As the students enter the university, they meet a challenge when they take their first exam, it is totally different from the middle school or high school. Actually, there are many Korean university students with this problem. On the other hand, in France, they have an essay test called 'baccalauréat'. Some people say that it is lack of objectiveness, and almost subjective because there is no exact standard for evaluation. But, I think our school testing system had better to take some of this kind of forms for students to develop their thinking ability. Finally, sometimes, students can easily cover the exams just by short studying at night before the exam, so they have a tendency to study just for a short time, not daily routine. I think the primary purpose of testing in school is to supervise students that they study regularly and check they get the whole concept that they learn. So, I think it's also good to have quiz to check for them. It is also good for students because if they can do small amount of study each they, they do not have to stay the whole night just for the one-hour test.

 

         Testing in school is vital for students to check and evaluate their ability. But, sometimes there can be a problem, so, we should supplement the ways of testing system as I wrote upward. Then, we can chase two hares at once, fairness and the improvement in studying.