Too much importance is put on testing these days. Tests are regarded as curriculum activitiea at school and pupils are even forced to do different kinds of rather stressful tests, while teachers are doing their best to prepair them for such kinds of “knowledge checkings” instead of drawing children`s attention to more creative activities. So, I strongly believe that testing tasks shoulg be reduced drammatically in number due to some significant reasons.
As it has been already mentioned, tests are rather stressful for young learners. Taking into consideration the fact that education itself is a great stress forchildren, tests only aggrivate the situation. Some psycological tests have been conducted in Russia in order to find out how exams influence children emotional Stability. The figures are as following: 83% of pupils suffer from stress during the term and these feagures leap up to 97% during the exam itself. As a result, children mental health is seriously affected.
Moreover, tests imply strict system of rules and techniques to be followed, which gives no cretivity to young learners. While doing the test, the students` approach is purely mechanicle, which don`t show the real knowledge. Furthermore, some children tick or choose answers by chance while other try to use their real knowledge. Even though some children have perfect results in tests, they rarely reflect the real kwowledge level and vice versa. Consequently, this approach is rather discouraging.
Furthermore, teachers have to spend too much time on drilling and revisin test techniques with pupils instead of encouraging them to do some creative tasks, which devepol both their knowledge and creativity.
To conclude, I can say that I can`t deny the fact that tests should exist as a kind of progress control, but I strongly doubt that they are an objective and harmless form of assesment.
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