105.Short Essay and Article on : The Trauma of Examination

You are much disturbed by the way students undergo stress by the name of many examinations. You would like to express your opinion in the form of an article in a newspaper. Write your article in about 150 words.

Hints:

Exams are essential to know the level of learning — schools more examination-centric — learning is stressed — students committing suicide — teachers complete syllabus in a hurry — another way of assessment like project, assignments.

Ans. The Trauma of Examination

The examination has become a troublesome problem for most of the students as every student becomes tensed of examination as she moves to high school. An examination is necessary and essential for knowing one’s level of learning in comparison to other students in the class. But the development in recent years has made school more and more examination centric and learning is becoming much stressed and burdensome. We can notice students committing suicide when the board result is announced. This is a dangerous trend.

Teachers and students in school should aim at learning without burden and learning has to be seen as an enjoyable activity, not a stressful exercise as it happens today. The reasons for this undesirable problem are many. First and the foremost is the heavy syllabus and textbook which compels teachers to complete in a hurry and test every one chapter or a concept once it is completed. Students who have no say in the way the schools plan and conduct their classes and examinations have to undergo the burden of writing many examinations. Second is the parents’ pressure on the school and students. Parents expect that students should perform very well and get into premier institutions. This increases the burden on students who are naturally different from one another. The third is the students themselves who somehow want to get a very high percentage of marks in order to be successful. They feel, otherwise, they can’t do anything in life. This is a wrong notion.

How can we overcome the problem of a burden of examinations? We need a plan to solve the issue from the point of view of teachers, students and parents. One possible solution is coming together of these three along with the curriculum and textbook writers. We need to ask the question, ‘Do we need too many examinations?’ Examinations are not always a tool to measure how much has been learnt. Project work, assignment and classroom presentation can be part of the examination. If such ways are adopted for teaching and learning in school, an examination would not be a burden for students.