Exams vs Continuous Assessment
Settling into college can take a little time.
Written by James Bohan | View this authors Twitter page and posted in opinion
This is an opinion of a young person and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of SpunOut.ie. It is one person's experience and may be different for you. If you'd like to write something for SpunOut.ie please contact editor@spunout.ie.
"I believe it allows students to do the work to the best of their ability without getting completely stressed out and freaking out about exams"
The transition from the exam system of secondary school to the daunting prospect of continuous assessment, or CA, is a lot easier than many may fear. The CA system allows you to do a certain percentage or sometimes all of your grade through assignments. These can be essays, presentations or projects.
There are many advantages to continuous assessment, firstly and above all, it alleviates the stress of exams. There is no better feeling than going into an exam knowing you just need to pass the exam to pass the module. Another plus to CA, in my opinion, is that you are given a topic and it’s usually up to you to do what you want with it, you are usually given a lot of space to do your own thing, the freedom is something I enjoy a lot.
Another huge positive to CA is that you learn as you go along, this is a big difference from cramming for exams. When doing an essay I find that I read articles and essays that I wouldn’t read if I just had exams. The weeks you have to prepare your assignment allow you time to perfect it and to do extensive research. I found the transition from exams to continuous assessment relatively easy. It can be hard to get to grips with the fact that one essay can account for 100% of your grade, but it is far less stressful than exams (even if it is group work).
Exams at third level can be very daunting. I have just gone through my first set of exams as a college student, thankfully they went by without any issues. Although I was very nervous when they were approaching, I didn’t know what to expect; would they be like secondary school? How big will the hall be? What will the questions be like? They were not at all as scary as I thought they would be, they felt just like state examinations. The questions were laid out just as our lecturers had said. They’re just like any other exams, if you put the work in you’ll be fine.
I am very happy, my college DCU puts a big emphasis on continuous assessment, and I believe it allows students to do the work to the best of their ability without getting completely stressed out and freaking out about exams.
