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?

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?

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|In many schools and academic institutions throughout the world today there has been a shift from formal examinations and tests to assessment |
|based on home assignments and tutorial or class presentations. This change has been welcomed by many educationalists who view formal exams and |
|testing as an unreliable and inadequate means of evaluating a student's achievements. On the other hand, supporters of regular formal testing |
|lament the lack of rigour and 'dumbing down' heralded by these changes and claim that important mental skills, exercised under exam conditions,|
|have been devalued. |
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|One valid argument against regular and excessive testing is that it distracts teachers from his or her primary task; teaching. Nowadays, |
|teachers are being held more and more accountable for the academic fortunes of their students and this often results in a preoccupation with |
|strategies for passing exams rather than with learning itself. A recent survey on learning second languages in Greece found that the poor |
|performance of students studying English for the Cambridge examinations was attributable in part to the disproportionate amount of time spent |
|on practice with past papers rather than the expansion of the students' knowledge and use of the language. |
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