IELTS Writing Task 2 Topic 11: Too much emphasis is placed on testing these days

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Too much emphasis is placed on testing these days. The need to prepare for tests and examinations is a restriction on teachers and also exerts unnecessary pressure on young learners.

To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include relevant example from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Essay 01 :

While “burning the midnight oil” for your final exam, you may find yourself nervously shaking and on the verge of exploding. On this fatal date, many of your future hopes can be crushed. Too much strain is put on a single, taking approximately an hour, assessment. This practice has been taken for granted for many years, and only recently, some voices are calling it old – fashioned.

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The testing system has one distinctive feature that enhances the process of education. It is universal and standardized while at the same time, it does not take into account the individual. Therefore, teachers are relieved from the burden of designing a personal exam paper. However, some scientists argue that each student possesses unique qualities (creativity, imagination, logical thinking) and unified, strict methods of assessment cannot bring them on the surface.

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Nowadays, ambitious parents push their kids to be more obsessed with marks. There are many cases of people encouraging their children to calculate perplexing equations or studying French. All this at the expense of playing outside, socializing and just being a kid. The reason is obvious – the better the under-aged perform, the higher prospects for “hot” schools.

Another aspect of the stressful practice in modern examinations is that it shows only the momentary situation. Even though you may have problems with one part of the textbook, the outcome depends on pure chance. A good step in reversing the process is the ¾ test throughout the semester, implemented nu universities.

On balance, the outdated approach to assessment should be reached and adapted to fit in the modern situation. More constructiveness and reducing anxiety are vital if society wants to keep people willing to learn and not just to achieve high marks.

Model Essay 02 :

The education is the key of future; it is the only way to encourage people to improve their life and environment. Actually, in nowadays testing people, specially students is the common way to evaluate learning process and teachers tend to pay a lot of attention on students score as it was the only measure to check the knowledge. It is developing high level of pressure on young learners.

The school has a lot of objectives, but the mean one is to prepare people for the life. In fact, life is sometime very stressful and hard, and it is necessary to have the ability to control difficulties and having success in hard time as well. Then it is possible that the high pressure exerts on children and students about testing is a way to help them to be strong and to learn face future stressful situation.

On the other hand, to force students to learn some specific things in specific time could discourage the creative and become students in knowledge’s consumers conversely to look for develop skills or discover personal abilities. In my opinion, pressing students having good score, you are achieving that them memorize a lot of information, but no necessary to learn or understanding it.

Furthermore, experts have found around the world that open learning process make more intelligent and creative students, because to be relaxed and feeling comfortable is easy to learn and discover new things; so this way to teach is better to develop skills and improve difficulties.

In the final analysis, in my view, even to learn to control stress and pressure is important and necessary, if the goal is developing skills and encourage  the intelligence, it is necessary to decrease of pressure about testing and promote creative process.

Model Essay 03 :

Exams and tests have always been discussable things. Is it better to do they or not? As always, it depends. I believe that examinations are necessary, but frequency of doing them should be rethink carefully.

First of all, too many exams in primary schools exert high pressure on kids. It can cause problems which can be seen later, like a depression or low self-esteem. Being compared all the time with peers is not a pleasure. Feeling of constant rivalry is really horrible.

But are all children equal? I do not think so. Alter each year (or at least once after primary school) children should be assess. And here tests or another form of examinations should take place. I remember my tests at the end of primary school and they were not pleasant. But thanks them we knew where we should go: to technical or vocational secondary schools , somewhere else or nowhere.

I have heard that nowadays teachers have to prepare minimum one test per month in primary and secondary schools. This trend to test children and students every month causes that teachers concentrate rather on preparing and making tests and not teaching students how to think or gain knowledge useful for their future work.

On the other hand, if students know there is an ongoing exam, they study harder. No gain, no pain.

For these reasons I strongly believe that examining learners is integral part of teaching process. Tests are important, but it would be great to let children and students live and not only learn.

Model Essay 04 :

With a common view to judging the students’ quality, nations have different ways to approach the issues. However, in some countries, examinations deem to be emphasized heavily, leading to limitation for teachers and exceeding pressure on young pupils.

With regards to teachers, this method plays a considerable role in their work. People can hardly find out a better assessment than through testing and examining students which gives a frank and objective results. Not only do grades indicate how much the students’ effort is but they also helps teachers with categorize them in comparison with other students. Nonetheless, examinations bring the teachers high pressure including building the tests and marking them. For instance, in most Vietnamese schools, each class has lots of students, meaning that teachers have the equal number of test to rank. That is the problem of heavier workload along with higher pressure. Nevertheless, teachers are not the only patient of too much emphasis on testing.

Students, particularly the the young ones, are worse affected by enormous quantity of test during school time. No sooner do children start attending primary schools than they have to struggle against the enemy named tests. Crammed with many a subject and different types of examination, it is not overstated that studying turns out to be a burden for kids to bear that may result in kids’ depress and health deterioration. Despite the counter – productive effect, evaluation apparently still contributes to the students life and career. The grades expose their great endeavor at school and shall be a recognition of a hard – working process.

All in all, important role of tests and examinations is undeniable in education systems. However, governments and schools should take advantage of the method of an appropriate level to balance its pros and cons.

Model Essay 05 :

For many people interested in studying abroad, one of the first problems they face is obtaining a visa to enter the country and, in many situations, the procedure is time-consuming and frustrating. As a result, there is a clear case for making visa applications less stringent. However, there is also a potential for abuse if the system was made more lenient, and both of these opinions need to be considered.

In support of simplifying the visa-application procedure, it must be remembered that obtaining a visa is one of the first steps towards studying in a foreign country. If this process is difficult then it reflects poorly on the country the student is intending to go to. Moreover, once in the country, students often find it less problematic to use the services of an immigration agent, to whom they surrender their passports and pay sometimes phenomenal sums of money. In the same way, this again reflects poorly on the host country.

Yet there is a point of view that suggests visa regulations should remain as they are, or even become stricter. It is inevitable that once a developed country opens its door to students, there will be some who exploit the opportunity without any intention of fulfilling the study requirements of their visa.

To conclude, perhaps the best solution would be to allow the schools, colleges and universities that attract international students to have greater control over those students that do arrive in a country. This would allow the institutions themselves to police the students while being overseen by the Immigration Service itself.

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