essay on exams should not be banned

Should exams be abolished?

F or young people, exams, like death and taxes, were once certainties of life. That was the case, at least, in a society that couldn’t have imagined a pandemic shutting it down and forcing it to adapt as radically as it has. The alterations coronavirus has forced us to make have allowed us to see what is possible that we previously thought impossible, and that includes a world without exams.

Even before the pandemic and the forced cancellation of both GCSEs and A-Levels for two years in a row, there was a growing consensus that the examination system is broken and unfit for purpose. Particular concern has been expressed about the relationship of more rigorous exams, introduced by Michael Gove under David Cameron’s coalition government, to the decline in young people’s mental health in recent years. A recent survey revealed that young people in Britain are the unhappiest in Europe, with only 64% of them experiencing ‘high life satisfaction’ (the happiest young people were found to be Romanians, of whom 85% reported high life satisfaction). More troublingly, research conducted in 2018 revealed that 20% of girls and 10% of boys had self harmed or attempted suicide at some point in their lives. Gus O’Donnell, formerly head of the civil service, blamed this, in a report by The Guardian , at least partly on an “addiction to exams”. 

After the cancellation of exams for the second year in a row, the voices calling for their abolition grew louder. The idea in particular of abolishing GCSEs is gaining a great deal of momentum, especially among journalists, social commentators and teachers. The Times reported in November 2019 that heads from the Girls’ School Association had said that GCSEs “belong in the Victorian times” and are “outmoded and draining” . While government officials have not commented on the dilemma quite to the same extent, Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow and chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, described GCSEs as “pointless”, calling for them to be scrapped and A-Levels to be replaced with a baccalaureate-style system containing a mixture of arts, science and vocational subjects. 

Critics have pointed out that the UK remains out of step with its European neighbours with GCSEs still in place, since it is the only country in the continent to test pupils at 16 and then at 18

Even more significantly, Lord Kenneth Baker, who was Education Secretary when GCSEs were introduced in 1986, has called for them to be scrapped. He has argued that they have become redundant now that pupils must legally stay in school or training until they are eighteen. Critics have also pointed out that the UK remains out of step with its European neighbours with GCSEs still in place, since it is the only country in the continent to test pupils at 16 and then at 18. Adding SATs for pupils in Year 2 and Year 6, they argue, makes British children some of the most over-tested in the world. 

By contrast, the Department for Education has shown no sign of supporting calls for GCSEs to be scrapped. In response to Halfon’s comments, they defended GCSEs as ‘gold-standard exams’ . Similarly, Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of Ofsted, rebuked claims that children are overtested in the UK, dismissing the argument as a ‘myth’ and suggesting instead that examination is good for both students and teachers. 

The outcome of cancelling GCSEs and A-Levels last summer was far from adequate, with an algorithm used for moderation downgrading grades given by teachers by up to three grades, especially in deprived areas. This was taken by some as a reason to rethink criticisms of the exam system, evidence that exams were in fact necessary and the only fair way to determine the qualifications pupils leave school with. 

This is a meritocratic argument, but the flip-side of this is that exams were never truly fair to begin with. The attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers speaks for this, as well as the variation in results from pupils who go to schools in affluent and deprived areas. Pupils from wealthier families are also afforded more support with their exams – their parents can afford to hire tutors or buy expensive revision books. They are also more likely to have sufficient study space and time. 

Recent research from King’s College London found that teacher assessments are equally as reliable as standardised exams at predicting educational success

Many oppose the abolition of exams because the potential alternatives are not up to the same standard. One option could be to make the temporary system of giving pupils grades permanent – teachers would decide, from the performance of pupils in the classroom, their final grade (though obviously without an algorithm to interfere with their judgments). Recent research from King’s College London found that teacher assessments are equally as reliable as standardised exams at predicting educational success. 

The major concern that arises, of course, could be bias. 

Concern has been raised by students over negative relationships with their teachers affecting their grades: an anonymous student writing for the Independent mentioned a friend declaring “My life is over,” after mitigation measures for exams were announced during the reveal of the third lockdown. 

Coursework as an alternative removes some of the stress and anxiety of exams by allowing pupils to spread their work over a period of time

Another option could be to replace exams with coursework. Although not favoured by the coalition government that reformed exams and removed much of the coursework, it potentially removes some of the stress and anxiety of exams by allowing pupils to spread their work over a period of time. It could also be argued that it is better preparation for further or higher education, where coursework is used far more frequently, especially for humanities subjects. It is also much more similar to tasks that would be expected in the workplace, with the obvious expectation that pupils won’t find anything resembling exams awaiting them when they enter the world of work. 

However, part of the reason that coursework has been removed for the most part from exam syllabuses is concerns about cheating, through copying another student or even through the use of essay mills. By contrast, there are far fewer possibilities to cheat in an exam, and invigilation remains incredibly strict to prevent this from happening. 

Scrapping exams permanently would also have implications for schools. These could be positive, on the one hand, especially from a financial perspective. Exams are expensive for schools, especially for subjects that are less popular, and without them schools could be afforded a greater budget – potentially vital as ten years of austerity have left them overstretched. If only GCSEs were scrapped, a question mark hangs over the schools that don’t have sixth forms, which would mean they would not offer any exams at all. University admissions would also potentially be affected without GCSEs, as universities will have no record of a student’s exam performance if they have not taken any AS-Levels in Year 12. 

With the government preoccupied by the vaccine rollout and decisions over lockdown measures, it is unlikely that any more radical reforms to the exams system will be implemented in the short to medium term, especially not when barely half a decade has passed since the last ones. Regardless, though scrapping A-Levels is harder to justify, the calls in particular for an end to GCSEs are unlikely to go away. Unless the school leaving age is lowered, which is also unlikely, there will always be an argument that they are no longer relevant and thus the stress they cause both pupils and teachers is unnecessary. 

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Persuasive Essay Example on Should Exams be Abolished?

What is your opinion on exams? Many people may agree with exams, but many more people disagree… including a lot of teachers- An article by the guardian states “60 percent of teachers… said they did not think exams were necessarily the best indicators of a pupil's ability.” So really, what’s the point in exams? Well, examinations were invented to check student’s overall knowledge in subjects, though they have since become more of a memory game, which the world has become obsessed with… So much so that you are allowing children to suffer over them. We need to change that.

Examinations put so much pressure on pupils, it’s truly shocking. I believe the pressure comes not only from the actual exams themselves, but often a lot more… think of all the pressure these poor students must feel, from all the studying and preparation, to actually sitting in the exam hall participating in their many exams, to awaiting the exam results. Students are expected to do too good which is causing them to suffer. “Child Line results from the past few years show that 11% more students have been coming to them for counselling sessions (information from the NSPCC website) because of exam stress and pressure that is put on them from their parents and schools.” Earlier in this paragraph, it also states “statistics show that students facing exams in 2019 are likely to face over 9 hours more of exams than in 2016 (information from the Independent).” (williamfarr.lincs.sch.uk). Shocked? Of course, you are. This shows the appalling amount of pressure students face every year, the stress it causes not only leads to more students attending counselling sessions but also may affect many of their mental and physical health. The second quote, although from 2019, tells us the eye-opening, surprising amounts of time that the pupils spend simply sitting exams. We are now in 2022, so how many more hours do you think have been added since? In my personal experience, I am sitting around 12 hours of exams this year. That’s half a day, plus that’s not counting any study time. I think it’s about time we do something about this.

Sadly, students are often forced to deal with a range of mental health problems, which are commonly caused by these loathsome examinations. So, how can exams cause mental illness? Well, the stress, pressure, and worry of exams can all lead to extreme anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and many, many more. “Over half of mental health issues in the UK are in students from the age of 14 onwards, and that 75% of mental health issues will appear by age 18.” This is the time where students are likely to be preparing for, and eventually sitting, exams. We can clearly see from this, that exams are affecting students’ mental health, yet nothing is being done about it. Think about how many people sit exams each year, and how many people are burdened with a mental illness of some sort because of it. I think this is totally unfair. We should at the very least be offering more support to struggling students.

Now, not only do exams cause mental illness in students, but they can also cause physical illness and pain. From vomiting to self-harming, all sorts of physical sickness and suffering can be caused by exams. “More extreme reactions to exam situations included headaches, insomnia and vomiting.” (theguardian.com). Another website, independent.co.uk, states “The poll carried out by the National Education Union (NEU), found that more than half (56 percent) of school staff said youngsters had been self-harming or thinking of self-harming.” Although many people will only experience problems such as having ‘butterflies in their stomachs’, others end up becoming ill. Although things such as vomiting and headaches aren’t extreme illnesses, the fact that students are still forced into sitting exams when it is known that they make people physically (and of course mentally) unwell is appalling. Plus, on top of this, some students cause suffering for themselves as they feel like they need to hurt themselves… do you really think this is acceptable?

Exams affect some pupils so badly, that they decide to take their own life. Imagine feeling the need to kill yourself because of exams. People are quite literally dying because of exams and yet, we still do nothing about it. “Almost half (49%) of education staff say secondary school pupils have been suicidal because of the stress they’re under.” (markinstyle.co.uk). Information from another source states “With 29% of the 201 teen suicides in 2014 taking place whilst waiting for exam results, or the exams themselves, (information from a report on the BBC website)”. In the first quote, we are warned by teachers that exam stress is causing students to become suicidal. I don’t know how it can become any clearer. The second quote may be from 2014, but, I believe, exams are only becoming harder and more stressful, and so it is likely that the numbers have increased since then. Now let’s talk about the 2nd quote… in 2014 there were roughly 58 suicides caused by exams (29% of 201=58). 2014 was around 8 years ago now, so if we assume that there are roughly 58 exam related suicides per year, we would get 464 teen suicides caused by exams. 464 suicides in the past 8 years. That’s actually frightening. And unnecessary... by simply putting an end to exams, we can quite literally save lives!

So why should exams be abolished? Well, clearly some students seriously struggle because of them, for many reasons: they add way too much pressure; they cause both mental and physical illness; they cause people to self-harm; and most importantly, they cause people to die. On top of all of this, there are many more which weren’t covered in this essay… But yet we are still forced to sit exams. So yes, exams may have some benefits and are good in a way, but the bad seriously outweighs the good.

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Why Standardized Testing Needs To Be Abolished

“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.” — Michelle Obama

The amount of time students spend taking standardized tests during school has grown significantly in recent years. America’s youth are required to give up valuable class time to take federally-mandated assessments that are used to compare them, their schools and their states to others. Standardized tests are generally multiple choice and focused mainly on English and math, though sometimes social studies and science are included in the tests, as well.

The point of standardized testing is to determine the average score of schools, states and the nation and to compare and contrast them. This is to see where help should be provided and to decide what should be done for America and its education system to progress.

However, it is appropriate to consider whether all these tests are actually helping, if these assessments students must take so frequently really will help our nation’s educational systems and the students they serve to make progress.

Standardized testing started off with seemingly innocent intentions, but today it has grown destructive to America’s public education system. Big companies that create the tests won’t stop making tests even though they cause harm in our school systems, because they profit and grow wealthy from those school systems using their tests.

According to evidence, one of the many problems with the tests is that the tests, for one, have no evidence supporting the idea that they are in any way beneficial. Many consider the No Child Left Behind legislation to have lowered the national success rate in education. A study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that “available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based incentives to improve education.” Scholars agree that a single test score or a set of test scores don’t really measure what students have learned in a test or at school. The tests don’t cover many skills and leave out material.

Additionally, standardized tests do not accurately measure how much a student has learned or his or her aptitude. The tests are used solely for many important decisions, so if you have a score that is below excellent, there could be serious and unintended ramifications that were not even meant for you by those who designed the test.

Test scores are used for many decisions. For instance, they were widely used to label schools. Schools tagged as “failing” can diminish teacher and administrative pay, encourage parents to move their students to another school and ultimately lead to the schools’ closure. Standardized tests are also used to determine how effective teachers are, whether a school should be stripped of certain freedoms and be placed under purely Common Core standards, without electives or fun, and whether a school should lose funds. On the other hand, the schools that have better test results often receive rewards, such as more funding.

Schools spend great amounts time — not to mention money — to secure assessments and make sure there is no cheating, but students are more likely to cheat as more pressure is placed upon them to perform well.

Tests do not provide any insight to what should be done to improve the scores and to help the students succeed, so they serve no true purpose or benefit to schools or their students.

These tests generally do not contain enough material to really be able to evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses. According to the National Academy, the left-out information is most often “the portion of the curriculum that deals with higher levels of cognitive functioning and application of knowledge and skills.”

Standardized testing leads to less time learning, a more narrow curriculum and more time overall taking tests. This disrupts school routines, lessens time teaching and learning. Class time is spent on teaching to the test, practice tests and learning test-taking strategies.

The tests have been said many times to stifle creative thinking, to fail to effectively measure the achievement gap between social groups, and to demean one’s love of learning and self-confidence.

Schools spend great amounts time — not to mention money — to secure assessments and to make sure there is no cheating, but students are more likely to cheat as stakes rise and as more pressure is placed upon them to perform well.

Evaluations of teachers and decisions to close schools that perform poorly use test scores as the main source of judgement. Schools that receive budget cuts from the government based on test results are forced into firing teachers, raising class sizes, and losing programs of value. This process is harmful, but unfair decisions based on test scores alone continue to be made.

A proposed bill in the recently concluded state legislative session, House Bill 2730 , would have restricted standardized testing in public school, a critical step in the right direction for education in Hawaii. The bill would have limited “public school student participation in standardized tests, prohibit(ed) the use of standardized tests scores for evaluation purposes, authorize(d) standardized testing exemptions, and require(d) the Board of Education to provide notice of the right to opt out of standardized testing.”

Unfortunately, the bill was killed after passing only one reading. Why?

Restraints on these federally mandated assessments is necessary for Hawaii and our entire nation to move back up on international rankings of student knowledge and application.

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Blog post – Should we ban final exams?

For centuries, exams have played a central role in assessing student competencies. However, as the higher education landscape changes, there has been an increasing divide between educational practitioners about the benefits and drawbacks of exams. 

In the first debate from UQ’s Higher Ed Debate series , we examined this controversy and invited staff and students to present their views on the topic That we should ban final exams . We followed the common debate style of having two teams of three members, with one team supporting (affirmative) and one team opposing (negative) the topic.

Debate recording

Debate summary

Affirmative team – arguing in favour of banning final exams.

The affirmative team argued that exams under the status quo are not an effective means of assessing student knowledge or employability as they prioritise breadth over depth, test students’ ability to recall facts rather than prepare them for future employment, assess students by their penmanship and ability to write neatly rather than deep knowledge and assess students under time pressure without access to world knowledge (i.e. Google search), which is rarely the case in the real world.

They further argued that exams provide a poor learning experience as they encourage cramming which is an ineffective way of studying, carry an excessively large weight of the final grade which introduces a harmful level of stress and anxiety, lack inclusivity as they unfairly disadvantage those who are neurodivergent or have disabilities and lack accountability in terms of quality of marking and providing feedback. In addition, they argued that proctoring online exams introduces data privacy concerns that students should not have to bear. 

As a strategy to address concerns raised by the use of exams, they suggested the use of low-state, authentic, bite-size assessments that assess content at the end of each week or a short module.

Negative team – Arguing against banning final exams

The negative team responded that most of the points raised by the affirmative team relate to poorly developed exams rather than exams by nature. For example, it is possible to create open book exams that test your ability to authentically solve problems and apply knowledge, use oral exams to test employability factors beyond recalling facts or use a digital assessment platform to avoid issues related to poor handwriting and to increase marking accountability and provide feedback. Additionally, they outlined the importance of testing breadth in relation to recall-based questions. They also argued that even though industry-specific knowledge is widely accessible, as the expert in a domain, you're expected to know the content when you meet with a client rather than having Google open in front of you to search for answers. They highlighted two benefits that exams carry over bite-sized assignments:

• Final exams can critically assess your ability to apply knowledge from across all parts of the course rather than content related to a specific module.
• Exams enable students to develop the ability to work under stress under tight timelines, which gives them an employability advantage.

The team further argued that the affirmative team failed to provide any evidence of why alternative assessments to exams are any better. For example, if their argument is that academics are creating poor exams, why would the quality of alternative assessments they make be any better? In terms of anxiety and stress, turning exams into bite-sized assignments means many more overlapping deadlines across courses for a student, which itself is a source of anxiety. Accountability of marking is also a problem with assignments as tutors might be under time pressure to read and provide feedback on a long essay with very little given time. The use of team-based assessments may disadvantage students that are stuck in a bad team or might give an unfair advantage to free-riders. Oral presentations may also introduce stress and are unscalable, plus they take up a lot of students’ contact time. Work-integrated learning may introduce overhead funding for travel and attire and raise fairness concerns as the quality of the experience may vary significantly depending on the placement. 

Finally, they raised the important point of academic workload and viewing academics as a finite resource. Exams are a time-effective way of establishing how well a student has achieved learning outcomes, which have academic integrity embedded into them. While it is possible to replace them, alternatives would generally require significantly more time commitment, which maxed-out academics would find challenging to achieve.

Do you think final exams should be banned?

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All members of the UQ Teaching Community are welcome to contribute a blog to be published on the ITaLI website and shared in our UQ Teaching Community Update newsletter. Contact [email protected] to contribute or for more information.

Associate Professor Hassan Khosravi

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Let’s not return to flawed exams. We have better ways to assess our children

A fter a week of GCSE and A-level results, we are in danger of missing the big point – our assessment system is not fit for purpose. It ruins the last four years of school on a narrow, stressful, unfair and badly designed exam merry-go-round. So, before we revert to flawed pre-Covid exams, now is the time for radical change.

The results of teacher assessments, we are told, is “ grade inflation ” but perhaps they actually reflect grade reality – the reality of what a child has learned in that subject over time, rather than merely what they can recall in that highly pressured moment in an exam hall.

Simon Lebus, head of Ofqual, the exams watchdog, is right when he says : “Exams are a bit like a snapshot, a photograph – you capture an instant, it’s a form of sampling – whereas teacher assessment allows teachers to observe student performance over a much longer period, in a rather more complex way, taking into account lots of different pieces of work and arriving at a holistic judgment. We can feel satisfied that it’s likely to give a much more accurate and substantial reflection of what their students are capable of achieving.”

This is particularly true for the most disadvantaged students. The received wisdom is that exams are fairer and more impartial. Leave aside that Ofqual admits that one in four grades is wrongly marked, the evidence from our schools suggests that students living in poverty are most adversely affected by having to perform in high-stakes moments in the exam hall. And many people are not aware that in a normal exam year a third of students, often branded “ the forgotten third ”, must fail their exams, however well they do, because of where grade boundaries are placed. In other countries, such as the US, if you meet the criteria, you pass.

Of course, without training and internal and external moderation to get rid of biases and inaccuracies, teacher-assessed grades can have problems, but this has been overcome for years in subjects such as drama, music and art and the extended project qualification (EPQ), which is much respected by universities.

I understand the impulse of some teachers, scarred by the huge amounts of extra work and pressure piled on them this year, to want to return to external exams. But that would be a huge missed opportunity. Many teachers have benefited from powerful professional development on curriculum and assessment in the past two years and we should harness these skills to shape a new system.

To succeed, we need to win the argument about “rigour’ in education. In the hands of former education secretary Michael Gove, rigour became the term for harder exams; harder exams were taken to mean more subject content. Yet this isn’t rigour. Rigour should mean that the assessment system is a true reflection of the varied strengths of every child – their knowledge, skills and dispositions. A rigorous assessment system would go beyond surface knowledge and exam technique and value the ability to think, to understand, to apply knowledge. It would identify the wider dispositions and strengths of every child. It would capture the development of each child throughout their schooling, not just on a few days, so that we get rid, once and for all, of the cliff-edge moment of the unveiling of 10 numbers or letters on GCSE day.

To do this, we need to change both what we assess and how we assess it (this needs to be varied – not just all the eggs in the exam basket). Ways to achieve this would include the following three:

First, students should be able to study interdisciplinary courses, not just single subject courses. So, a Steam (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) GCSE, not just separate maths and sciences. Some independent and state schools are now devising their own courses on global perspectives, migration and climate change.

Second, we should recognise the strengths of every child in dispositions that are key to thriving in the modern world – creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication (or oracy). Employers spend a huge amount of time assessing these when they recruit, many believing they are now a better indicator of high performance than a degree.

Third, we could have many modes of assessment – not just exams and teacher assessment but other methods now widely used, for example, in universities. If you are studying medicine at a Russell Group university, you are assessed not just by exams but through observations, structured discussions, vivas, portfolios of evidence. And universities have experimented with open book exams and exams with extended periods of time, both of which have been successful. Assessments could be taken in secondary schools over several years, when the student is ready, rather than in one big group at the same time.

Across the world, there are interesting assessment practices we can learn from. Many of these practices have a similar purpose – to broaden what is valued in school beyond a narrow set of exams. (This paper is a great curation from Bill Lucas of some of the key ones: rethinkingassessment.com/our-findings/ ). The Mastery Transcript Consortium in America gives a more holistic dashboard of a student’s achievements. The Australian Council for Educational Research has worked successfully with schools on how to offer evidence of dispositions such as creativity and critical thinking.

This autumn, Rethinking Assessment (a coalition of schools, employers, universities, teachers and parents) will be conducting research projects in classrooms across the country in each of these three areas and we are seeking more schools to take part.

The aim is to capture the evidence and start to design a more “comprehensive learning record”, a digital transcript of the full strengths and achievements of every child. This passport could be tailored by the student to meet the needs of employers, universities and colleges and would mean that young people leave school with something that genuinely reflects what they can do and who they are.

This would be an assessment reform that would need to be implemented over time with proper training and support for teachers. It is one that we believe would command widespread support, be a lot fairer, would motivate young people and prepare them properly for the future.

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Why we should abolish the university exam

Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University

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I do not have affiliations that would create conflits of interest in the context of the issues raised in this opinion piece.

Macquarie University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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The time has come to abolish university examinations. Just because something has been around a long time there’s no reason to assume it’s outdated. But in the case of exams that assumption would be right.

We’ve all been through it. You sit down in a room for two or three hours and answer questions from memory. Now we’re wedded to the idea that’s how you should test someone’s knowledge.

But research shows that examinations don’t develop questioning, self sufficient learners. So why have universities, by and large, chosen to retain them?

The case for examinations

People deploy a number of arguments in defence of examinations: they represent a gold standard of assessment to combat grade inflation; they guarantee the requirements of professional bodies; they provide a sea wall against the rising tide of plagiarism.

These reasons have varying degrees of merit but none of them, in themselves, provide a complete defence of the examination system.

It’s true that grades have apparently been improving for a few years now. As the content of degrees has remained relatively stable during that time I assume that degrees have not got easier but that it is easier to do well – and maybe the students simply work harder and do better.

But the improvement is really down to offering students alternatives to examinations. When tested in other ways students get better marks. So the “gold standard” argument comes down to a choice to test a student in a way that depresses their capacity to get a high mark. I am not sure why any teacher would want to do that.

Highlighting that exams can ensure a common professional standard has some merit, but what is a university for if it is simply delivering the requirements of a third party?

The case that exams save us from academic malpractice has most merit, albeit as a counsel of despair. And is the problem of plagiarism really as big as people fear?

Most experienced university lecturers would agree that there seems to be more plagiarism around than there used to be. Whether this is because of improved detection via software like Turnitin or more malpractice is hard to tell, probably a bit of both.

A different era

We have to remember that students today face different pressures to those of previous generations. They have to balance study and work in ways that most of us didn’t.

They are entering a mass higher education system designed for an educated citizenship not an elite system for a small number of professionals, managers and intellectuals. Their schooling is different. They have computers.

Gen-Y doesn’t have a mystical relationship with the virtual world but it is probably true that the difference between physical and virtual reality, between face-to-face and mediated communication, is less marked for a 20 year old student than it is for a 50 year old professor.

One symptom of this blurring is different attitudes to the idea of originality. It’s clear that many of our students genuinely don’t know when they are plagiarising because they don’t recognise originality as necessarily privileged.

OK, I know this looks like post-modern ideology but nothing could be further from the truth: what I am saying is based on my experience as a teacher.

Don’t be afraid of changing the culture

Can universities address all this? Can they guarantee standards without grade inflation? Can they encourage good study habits without using examinations as a policeman?

They can and do. Many parts of many universities already assess imaginatively and creatively and the world has not come to a standstill.

Much of our academic culture is driven by an anxiety-based conservatism. Students are not like academics: they work and achieve in different ways. We should celebrate this difference not fear it or try to compensate for it.

Students coming to university give us a great gift of trust: we should repay that trust by trusting and giving the opportunity to develop the knowledge, the skills and the opportunity to excel. Scrapping examinations is just one step towards that.

Should universities abolish exams? Leave your comments below.

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• J Microbiol Biol Educ
• v.22(2); Fall 2021

Rethinking Assessment: Replacing Traditional Exams with Paper Reviews

Sarah r. sletten.

a Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA

Associated Data

The abrupt shift to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic left faculty at a loss of how to administer exams, which are common methods of summative assessment in college courses. This study evaluates students’ perceptions of an alternative assessment method in which they complete Paper Review Forms on relevant primary literature in a majors microbiology course. Students indicated that they felt that Paper Reviews made microbiology content relevant to them, increased their engagement with the course content, and overall were a better way of assessment of their understanding of microbiology content than traditional exams. The format of Paper Reviews for assessment purposes makes them a good option for remote learning.

INTRODUCTION

The science of teaching and learning has always had a strong focus on assessment. Best pedagogical practices include backward design ( 1 ), which outlines course design with assessment considerations at the forefront of planning. Proctored exams have been a mainstay in college classrooms for centuries. Even with the inclusion of more project-based forms of assessments in more recent years, written exams have not lost their favor with faculty. In March 2020, COVID-19 moved higher education into remote learning environments, forcing faculty who utilized in-person exams to rethink the way they approached student assessment. According to the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment’s survey on assessment-related changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, 97% of responses made changes to their assessment strategies in some way during the spring 2020 semester ( 2 ). Changes included things such as modifying the assessments themselves, altering assessment deadlines/grading policies, and accepting alternative forms of assessments.

In what now appears to be a serendipitous event, the 2019 spring semester brought about several changes to the General Microbiology course at the University of North Dakota (UND). Grounded in educational theory of constructivism and using backward design, the course was redesigned to better align summative assessments (previously traditional exams) to the active learning teaching style of the course. One major change was the increased use of journal articles to emphasize content in real-world scenarios. The inclusion of primary literature in undergraduate classes has been reported to help students connect course content to scientific research ( 3 ), improve critical thinking and understanding of content ( 4 ), and increase students’ scientific literacy skills ( 5 ). Additionally, Bain ( 6 ) identified embedding content into broader concerns; encouragement of students to compare, apply, evaluate, and analyze, but never to just remember; and allowing students time to reflect independently as unifying principles of good instruction.

The methodological premise for utilizing primary research for assessing students’ understanding builds on Gowin’s Vee scaffold, which was designed to help students make connections between science concepts and laboratory experimentation ( 7 ). In the Vee diagram—a letter V—the left side is conceptual and contains ideas and concepts presented through lecture; the right side is where inquiry and experimental findings reside. The center of the V is where students are able to connect concepts with data to start to understand the process of science and how this drives knowledge creation.

This study was conducted in a 300-level majors General Microbiology course. Approval for use of course evaluations for this study was granted by the UND Institutional Research Board (exemption 4, IRB0002171). Participants were 31 students (43% of the total students registered) who completed the end-of-semester course evaluations for the spring 2019 semester. This course was newly redesigned using backward design; first goals and objectives were determined using ASM Curriculum Guidelines ( 8 ), and then appropriate assessments were identified. At the end of each unit where a traditional exam would typically be inserted, a different form of summative assessment was planned—Paper Reviews. This assessment task allowed for students to choose among four primary research journal articles pertaining to the major concepts of the unit and complete a Paper Review Form (see Appendix 1 in the supplemental material) using the article to address the questions on the form. The 16-week course was divided into four units, each with a Paper Review due at the conclusion. Paper Reviews were graded using a standard evaluation rubric (see Appendix 2).

The Paper Review Form was similar across all papers/units consisting of four identical prompts (see Table 1 ), and students were also asked to respond to a paper-specific question that varied from article to article based on the content and research discussed.

TABLE 1

Example papers for each unit with review form prompts and related specific questions

At the conclusion of the semester, students were asked the following questions specific to the Paper Reviews on their student course evaluations.

• 1. Journal article reviews made microbiology relevant to me (disagree, neutral, agree).
• 2. Journal article reviews increased my engagement in microbiology content (disagree, neutral, agree).
• 3. Do you feel the journal article reviews were a better assessment of your understanding of microbiology than exams would have been? Please explain (free response).

Questions 1 and 2 were quantitative in nature and were scored on a 1 to 5 scale (1, strongly agree; 2, disagree; 3, neutral; 4, agree; 5, strongly agree). Question 3 was open-ended and allowed for the collection of qualitative data.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Student course evaluations revealed that on a scale of 1 to 5, the majority of students either agreed (32%) or strongly agreed (58%) with the statement that Paper Reviews made microbiology relevant to them (mean, 4.45; standard deviation, 0.77). Most students also indicated that they agreed (29%) or strongly agreed (58%) that the Paper Reviews increased their engagement in microbiology content (mean, 4.39, standard deviation, 0.92).

The student free responses (see Table 2 ) were coded and subsequently grouped into the following themes: (i) relevant, (ii) engaging, (iii) teamwork, (iv) instructor, (v) flipped format, (vi) connectedness, and (vii) ease. From these themes, assertions were made about the student opinion of Paper Reviews over traditional exams. A large majority of students had favorable perceptions about using articles as a way to assess their understanding of microbiology. They felt that as opposed to exams that test ability to memorize material, article reviews connected course material to real-world scenarios and encouraged students to apply the course content leading to deeper learning. Students found the article reviews less stressful and more helpful, and they felt more enjoyment completing them than with exams. Students appreciated the way the article reviews aligned with structure of the flipped course, yet some found a disconnect, with the content covered in the online lectures not fully being covered in the article review questions.

TABLE 2

Student Pesponses to the open-ended question: Do you feel the journal article reviews were a better assessment of your understanding of microbiology than exams would have been? Please explain. Responses are unedited

The shift away from traditional exams to Paper Reviews aimed to align the course teaching and assessment strategies. Crowe et al. ( 9 ) posit that if classroom activities focus on Bloom’s taxonomy of higher-order cognitive domains (i.e., analysis and evaluation) yet assess using methods that utilize lower-order skills (i.e., knowledge and comprehension), students learn they do not need to put forth effort to fully understand the content. Paper Reviews encourage students to understand how course content relates to authentic research and develop written interpretations and assessments of scientists’ work, as well as apply it to novel situations.

Incorporating primary literature in college courses is a routine practice in college courses, and many studies have assessed their benefit in the classroom, especially for upper-level STEM courses where students are often preparing for graduate schools. Nelms and Segura-Totten ( 10 ) suggest that learning how to effectively analyze papers takes practice, and students who have repeated exposure to primary literature can develop “tools” to move toward reading mastery. Additionally, Anderson ( 11 ) found that graduate students who were part of an undergraduate course that incorporated a journal club that reinforced course contents felt more prepared than their peers to discuss papers. Meaningful exposure to primary literature can benefit all students regardless of degree attainment, as it can help build STEM literacy, which is part of the National Science & Technology Council’s goal to create a civil society that is better prepared for rapid technological change ( 12 ).

The replacement of traditional exams with Paper Reviews proved to be not only an effective way to assess student understanding of content in an upper-level microbiology course but provided for an easy transition to remote learning when the COVID-19 pandemic forced students and faculty home during the spring 2020 semester. This form of student evaluation should be considered a viable alternative to in-person exams.

Supplemental material is available online only.

SUPPLEMENTAL FILE 1

SUPPLEMENTAL FILE 1. Download JMBE00109-21_Supp_1_seq2.docx, DOCX file, 0.02 MB

• Educational Assessment

Five Reasons to Stop Giving Exams in Class

• February 18, 2022
• Donald A. Saucier, PhD, Noah D. Renken, and Ashley A. Schiffer

It is a common, but not universal practice to administer exams to students in class (e.g., Rovai, 2000). Traditionally, students come to class and take exams silently and independently without any resources. They have a time-limit that is usually the length of the class. The exams may be multiple-choice, matching, short answer, essay, etc., but even if there are multiple versions of the exam, all students basically do the same thing in the same way. We believe there are several compelling reasons why we may want to stop giving exams in class. We acknowledge that many instructors have valid reasons for giving exams in class (e.g., alternative assessment plans require time and effort, concerns about academic dishonesty; Cramp et al., 2019; Still & Still, 2015), and we urge instructors to use the practices that best fit their teaching philosophies and needs of their specific classes. However, we wish to address the limitations of doing so and offer five reasons to consider to stop giving exams in class. We believe these recommendations may increase the engagement of instructors and students, which may enhance the success of our teaching and learning (Saucier, 2019a; Saucier, Miller, Martens, & Jones, in press).

1. Exams in class are unduly stressful.

Exams given in class are stressful for students (e.g., Zeidner, 2010) and instructors (Madara & Namango, 2016). The instructor and/or teaching assistant proctor the exam, which includes patrolling the classroom in search of signs of students cheating. There is a time limit. Students may not be able to sit in their regular seats if more students take the exam than regularly attend class (which is particularly troubling given potential effects of environmental contexts on students’ exam scores; Van Der Wege & Barry, 2008). The exams are often high stakes, making students anxious about the outcome. And, while some may argue that giving exams in class prepares students for the stress of real life (e.g., Durning et al., 2016), it does not seem like the in-class exam experience readily generalizes other contexts. In real life, we often get to look up information from outside resources and double check it before we use it. While we support challenging our students, we believe this type of stress may not be directly helpful.

2. Exams in class are not equitable.

While exams in class are generally stressful, they do not impact all students in the same way. Individuals may experience differing levels of test anxiety (Zeidner, 2010), which may be affected by their experiences of stereotype threat (e.g., Danaher & Crandall, 2008), the imposter phenomenon (e.g., Kumar & Jagacinski, 2006), and/or their general struggles with anxiety (e.g., Zunhammer et al., 2013). The added pressure of the testing situation and the potential high stakes of the exam may cause some students to systematically underperform. Further, some students may have circumstances that require testing accommodations (e.g., extended test time, distraction-free environments). It may be stigmatizing for those students to be unable to take the exam with their classmates and they may feel their absences are conspicuous (e.g., Timmerman & Mulvihill, 2015). Simply put, the ways that we traditionally administer in-class exams may not be fair for everyone.

3. Exams in class are logistically difficult to administer.

The process of administering exams in class may be unnecessarily convoluted. The physical act of passing out exams, particularly if there is more than one form of the exam, is difficult and time-consuming. If the class is large, some students may get their exams several minutes earlier than other students and thus have the advantage of having more time to take their exams. Students who come late may disturb their classmates and may not finish on time. Similarly, students who finish early may distract those who are still working. Proctoring the exam to monitor signs of academic dishonesty and to maintain exam security is a difficult and imperfect process. The subjective experience for instructors and teaching assistants who proctor the exams is aversive. Personally, we are possibly more anxious than our students when we administer exams in class, as we watch them silently and intently, and both worry about cheating and that our students will not do well.

4. Exams in class are not empathetic.

We believe that in class exams are not empathetic, student-focused, or inclusive. We have discussed areas of inequity above, but we also believe in-class exams traditionally do not provide the support or understanding of our students’ potential personal and academic challenges that allow them to successfully demonstrate their learning. Additionally, in-class exams often fail to provide students with opportunities for personalization or creativity. We believe that in-class exams often do not achieve the goals set forth by inclusive teaching philosophies (Lawrie et al., 2017) and empathetic course design perspectives (Engage the Sage, 2021).

5. Exams in class are not fun.

We acknowledge some students do enjoy taking exams (admittedly, one of us loved to take exams as a student), but many do not. When our students tell us about the most meaningful things they did in our classes, they do not talk about exams (nor do we when looking back at our experiences as students). Instead, our students tell us about activities, projects, missions, creative products, and research studies. These are the fun and more meaningful ways that students demonstrate and apply their learning. We fear traditional in-class exams may take the meaning out of the wonderful things we teach and learn and our classes.

What should we do?

We have provided five reasons why we should consider not giving exams in class. For some instructors, exams may still be necessary.  If so, consider redesigning the exam experience to at least partially resolve some of these issues. For instance, you could permit your students to take them when and where they want during a predetermined time span (e.g., online via your institution’s learning management system). Moreover, allowing your students to use resources like their textbooks and class notes may ease test anxiety (e.g., Parsons, 2008) while helping them provide deeper answers to the questions (e.g., Green et al., 2016). This may also alleviate issues of academic honesty—it is not cheating to use these materials if you allow them to. Another option would be to have your students write and take their own exams (i.e., “Exams By You”; Saucier, Schiffer, & Jones, under review). At the very least, consider lowering the stakes of your exams so that one assessment does not have an exaggerated impact on your students’ overall semester grade.

But maybe we don’t need to use exams at all. We would rather infuse empathy into our classes (Engage the Sage, 2021) and bring PEACE (Preparation, Expertise, Authenticity, Caring, Engagement; Saucier, 2019b; Saucier & Jones, 2020) to our students, and perhaps we can offer professional development to our colleagues to help them do so (Saucier, Jones, Renken, & Schiffer, in press). Maybe we can focus our assessments on allowing our students to demonstrate their learning in ways that are applicable to (and fulfilling for) them. We can provide our students with the opportunity to apply the information in more sophisticated ways than mere memorization. We can empower them to demonstrate their learning through projects, papers, videos they create, podcasts they record, and other creative products. We can provide them with guidelines and rubrics to support them. From our own experience, we have been more excited to get the products of these projects than to grade monotonous exams. Everything we assign comes back to us. Let us allow our students to demonstrate their learning in ways that are less anxiety-provoking, more equitable and inclusive, less difficult to administer, more empathetic, and more fun. Using these ideas, we can make assessment more meaningful and more enjoyable for our students and for us.

Donald A. Saucier, PhD (2001, University of Vermont) is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar and professor of psychological sciences at Kansas State University. Saucier has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and is a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the Midwestern Psychological Association. His awards and honors include the University Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentoring of Undergraduate Students in Research, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Teaching Resource Prize. Saucier is also the faculty associate director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Kansas State University and offers a YouTube channel called “Engage the Sage” that describes his teaching philosophy, practices, and experiences.

Ashley A. Schiffer is also a doctoral student in the department of psychological sciences at Kansas State University. Her research often pertains to morality in relation to masculine honor ideology and/or military settings. She also works at Kansas State’s Teaching and Learning Center with Saucier and Renken to promote teaching excellence and contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Noah D. Renken is a doctoral student in the department of psychological sciences at Kansas State University. His research interests center on individual difference factors related to expressions of prejudice. Renken’s recent work has examined masculine honor ideology and the manifestation of attitudes towards stigmatized events (e.g., sexual violence, trauma). Noah also works in the Teaching and Learning Center at Kansas State University, where he collaborates with Saucier on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects.

Cramp, J., Medlin, J. F., Lake, P., & Sharp, C. (2019). Lessons learned from implementing              remotely invigilated online exams. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice ,      16(1), 10.

Danaher, K., & Crandall, C. S. (2008). Stereotype threat in applied settings re-examined. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38 (6), 1639-1655. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00362.x

Durning, S. J., Dong, T., Ratcliffe, T., Schuwirth, L., Artino, A. R., Boulet, J. R., & Eva, K. (2016). Comparing open-book and closed-book examinations: a systematic review. Academic Medicine , 91(4), 583-599.

Engage the Sage. (2021). Engage the sage: The empathetic course design perspective [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/-79FHyNd128

Green, S. G., Ferrante, C. J., & Heppard, K. A. (2016). Using open-book exams to enhance student learning, performance, and motivation. Journal of Effective Teaching , 16(1), 19-35.

Kumar, S., & Jagacinski, C. M. (2006). Imposters have goals too: The imposter phenomenon and its relationship to achievement goal theory. Personality and Individual differences, 40 (1), 147-157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.05.014

Lawrie, G., Marquis, E., Fuller, E., Newman, T., Qiu, M., Nomikoudis, M., … & Van Dam, L. (2017). Moving towards inclusive learning and teaching: A synthesis of recent literature. Teaching & learning inquiry , 5(1), 9-21.

Madara, D. S., & Namango, S. S. (2016). Faculty Perceptions on Cheating in Exams in Undergraduate Engineering. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(30), 70-86.

Parsons, D. (2008). Is there an alternative to exams? Examination stress in engineering courses. International Journal of Engineering Education, 24 (6), 1111-1118.

Rovai, A. P. (2000). Online and traditional assessments: what is the difference?. The Internet and higher education, 3 (3), 141-151.

Saucier, D. A. (2019a). “Having the time of my life”: The trickle-down model of self and student engagement. ACUECommunity. https://community.acue.org/blog/having-the-time-of-my-life-the-trickle-down-model-of-self-and-student-engagement/

Saucier, D. A. (2019b). Bringing PEACE to the classroom. Faculty Focus: Effective Teaching Strategies, Philosophy of Teaching. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/bringing-peace-to-the-classroom/

Saucier, D. A., & Jones, T. L. (2020). Leading our classes through times of crisis with engagement and PEACE. Faculty Focus: Online Education, Philosophy of Teaching. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/philosophy-of-teaching/leading-our-classes-through-times-of-crisis-with-engagement-and-peace/

Saucier, D. A., Jones, T. L., Renken, N. D., & Schiffer, A. A. (in press). Professional development of faculty and graduate students in teaching. Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning.

Saucier, D. A., Miller, S. S., Martens, A. L., & Jones, T. L. (in press). Trickle down engagement: Effects of perceived teacher and student engagement on learning outcomes. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Saucier, D. A., Schiffer, A. A., & Jones, T. L. (under review). “Exams By You”: Having students write and complete their own exams during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching of Psychology.

Still, M. L., & Still, J. D. (2015). Contrasting traditional in-class exams with frequent online testing. Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology , 4(2), 30.

Timmerman, L. C., & Mulvihill, T. M. (2015). Accommodations in the college setting: The perspectives of students living with disabilities. Qualitative Report, 20 (10).

Van Der Wege, M., & Barry, L. A. (2008). Potential perils of changing environmental context on examination scores. College Teaching, 56 (3), 173-176.

Zeidner, M. (2010). Test anxiety. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology .   https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0984

Zunhammer, M., Eberle, H., Eichhammer, P., & Busch, V. (2013). Somatic symptoms evoked by exam stress in university students: the role of alexithymia, neuroticism, anxiety and depression. PloS one, 8 (12), e84911. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084911

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Education Secretary: Standardized Tests Should No Longer Be a ‘Hammer’

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Standardized tests should be used as “a flashlight” on what works in education not as “a hammer” to force outcomes, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said during a speech last week.

The statement reflects a shift in thinking since annual testing became federal law more than 20 years ago, and it echoes past comments from Cardona, who warned states against using 2022 NAEP scores punitively when they showed steep drops in reading and math in September.

But federal policies stemming from the two-decade-old No Child Left Behind Act and its successor, the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, make it difficult for states to use standardized tests in any other way, policy experts say. And despite changing attitudes, there’s little indication that the nation’s schools will move away from the current form of test-based accountability anytime soon.

“It doesn’t matter what the sentiment is,” said Jack Schneider, an education professor and policy analyst at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell who is also an advocate for including alternative measures like school climate, teacher ability, and school resources in accountability policies. “The law is structured so that it really isn’t much of a flashlight.”

Cardona did not announce any new testing-related policies or plans for the Education Department in his Jan. 24 speech to educators , so it’s unclear if the agency plans to address concerns about test-based accountability through grants, waivers, or rulemaking. The department hasn’t announced any plans to revise standardized testing policy.

Still, his words reflect ever-changing opinions about standardized tests and what role they should play in evaluating school performance.

“He’s trying to bridge two eras,” Schneider said. “Right now, we are still very much in the era of test-based accountability because that’s the law. He also recognizes that’s not going to persuade very many people for much longer as a mechanism for school improvement.”

The lasting impact of No Child Left Behind

The debate over school accountability and standardized testing has been going on for over half a century, said Daniel Koretz, an education professor at Harvard University who has dedicated his research to high-stakes testing.

The original designers of standardized tests envisioned the tests as a way to measure individual students’ performance, not as an aggregate measure of schools’ performance, Koretz said.

They “were adamant that these tests cannot provide a complete measure of what we care about, what our goals of education are,” he said. “They’re necessarily incomplete.”

Despite that original intention, states and the federal government found standardized tests to be an efficient way to determine whether schools were performing to standards. And test proponents have said they’re necessary for ensuring English learners, students with disabilities, students of color, and low-income students don’t fall behind.

The government’s role in using tests to evaluate schools—rather than individual students—was solidified when former President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

The law, which had bipartisan backing and functioned as an update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, required states to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school with a goal of bringing them all to a state-determined level of proficiency by the 2013-14 school year.

It also established sanctions for schools that failed to stay on track and make “adequate yearly progress” with test scores. The law gave states—among other measures—the power to shut down schools that missed achievement targets several years in a row. Waivers to the law during the Obama administration loosened some of these rules but also required states to set up systems to evaluate teachers in part based on student test performance.

“That enormously ramped up the pressure, particularly in low-achieving schools,” Koretz said. “At that point, teachers really had no choice. They really could either fail, cut corners, or cheat.”

The law was later reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 , which loosened the federal government’s role in K-12 schools, removed requirements that states evaluate teacher performance based on student outcomes, and gave states power to decide what should happen to schools that miss performance targets.

But the law maintained the standardized testing requirements established in NCLB.

“The heart of NCLB, which is test-based accountability, remains in place,” Schneider said.

Advocating for a balanced approach

Some who oppose test-based accountability aren’t against standardized tests themselves. Large-scale standardized tests are useful in measuring how students in a certain state or across the country are performing compared to their peers.

But they are also limited. Critics say they offer only a snapshot of a student’s understanding of core subjects, making it difficult to determine whether a student performed poorly because they weren’t taught the material or because of outside factors like their mood, health, or home life.

Instead, testing experts say they’d like to see a more balanced approach to standardized tests. That means having more coherence among the large number of state and national assessments so they build off each other and can better help inform instruction and curriculum, said Scott Marion, the executive director of the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit focused on improving assessment and accountability practices.

It also means measuring students’ progress over time and the skills they’ve acquired, not just changes in their scores from one test to another. Tests also need to provide feedback to teachers more quickly to be useful, Marion said.

“I don’t care that [a student] went up six points—that might be good,” Marion said. “But did she learn how to better organize her paragraphs, vary her sentence structure, things like that?”

States can help ease the burden of accountability on schools by using the more balanced approach, and some states have, Marion said. But unless there are changes to federal law there will always be pressure for schools to produce high test scores.

The political outlook

Cardona’s message indicates a shifting perspective on the role standardized tests play in society, but not much has been done to actually change the federal law that lays out standardized tests’ role.

The Education Department could establish waivers, giving states more flexibility to create pilot projects to improve testing systems. And Congress could rewrite the law to put less of a focus on accountability.

But ultimately improvement would require more respect for education, Koretz said.

“Education has a very low status in this country,” he said. “A lot of policymakers don’t respect teachers or any other educators. They don’t trust them. So, who are you going to trust to go in and evaluate schools if you don’t trust educators?”

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• Speech Writing /

Speech On Should Exams be Banned

• Updated on  
• Dec 15, 2023

According to NCRB Data, 864 out of 10,732 youngsters under the age of 18 years died by suicide. This life ending, out of peer pressure, rose to 13,089 in 2021. These statistics do not reflect the numbers, but they remember how uneasy it is for children to face pressure just for the name of studies. 

In the world of technology, when things are just a few seconds away from every human, testing knowledge and skills is no longer theoretical. Academic institutions focusing more on hands-on experience celebrate success and give a different perspective to the present and the future in real-time. 

But as every coin has two sides, the same here is the heated topic of exams being banned or not, which is just not one-sided. On the one hand, old traditions still hold books and bags firmly, and on the other hand, some people believe in a practical approach without any mental stress and anxiety.

In this writing, we will try to understand whether the big and all-time hot topic, whether exams should be banned, still holds relevance or whether people have grown smarter to know that there is life beyond learning from books.

Also Read: Top 6 Effective Classroom Teaching Methods

2-Minute Speech On Should Exams Be Banned Speech

‘Hello and welcome to everyone present here. Today, I will be presenting a speech on ‘Should Exams be Banned?’ One of my friends with a twelve-year-old daughter was scrolling down on Netflix. As it was March, the peak time of pre-board examinations, I asked her about her preparation out of curiosity.’

‘She smiled back at me and asked me to chill, as the school doesn’t support examinations and goes for fun learning via classroom practical experience. Since there was no peer pressure of any review, she also planned a vacation with friends.’ 

‘Although the example was fictitious, it cannot be denied that some schools do not support pen and paper for examination; they believe in fun learning and remembering.’

‘Are school bags becoming so heavy that students cannot see the bright future? Can´t testing of studies cannot be turned on with practical learning, which turns off the pressure and makes learning fun?’

‘There might be people who will support examinations, as according to them, bookish knowledge cannot be replaced with practical and real-time learning. But what if we helped tests with adventure, like in Australia, Finland, Shanghai, and Canada?’

‘In the words of Thomas Edison, “Tomorrow is my exam but I don’t care, a single paper can’t decide my future.” Examinations are just a way to test your knowledge, and doing it with a pen and paper is unnecessary. Replace everything with expertise and practical experience and build a new world of learning. 

Thank you.’

Also Read: Essay on Education System

10 Lines on Should Exams Be Banned 

1.  No examination leads to exploration of real-world scenarios, which helps the students to learn with real experience.

2. Some students are born brilliant and do well in classrooms because they utilize their potential by removing the anxiety of last-moment examinations.

3. Interactive sessions create a broad definition of success, which is beyond classrooms. 

4. Examinations are no guarantee, as there is a distinct and dynamic future beyond academics.

5. No examination creates new learning styles and easy-to-go practical methods.

6. Without examinations, creating a cooperative learning environment is healthy for students.

7. If discussed with no peer pressure of examinations, children’s chances of comprehensive understanding raise the bar. 

8. No examination is the door to creativity and logical thinking.

9. As there will be no static examination pattern, the chances of creative learning styles will be enhanced. 

10. No examination with more creativity and hands-on experience will lead to more potential preparation for challenges.

Also Read: Importance of Education in Development

Examinations could be more effective in terms of creativity and exposure of talent. Moreover, tests stress students, sometimes leading to disinterest in studies.

Henry Fischel, an American businessman, invented examinations in the 19th century.

Examinations calculate grades and marks, setting a benchmark for numbers instead of fun and learning. When there is no fun in education, students cannot figure out what interests them; hence, it kills their creativity.

Examinations have a set of standards that lead the students on the way, followed for years. 

Many students cannot handle the peer pressure of the examinations. Due to this, their health gets affected, leading to depression and mental health issues.

Click here for 100+ essay samples to help you with your school.

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Deepika Joshi

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Exams should be abolished speech

Exams should be abolished

Exams – a word that many students dread to hear, a word that many students fear of, a word that seems to have the magical power to transform a happy and cheerful person into a frustrated and nervous wreck.

What are exams and should they been done away with entirely?

Exams are longer and more comprehensive versions of tests held every term. Initially created to monitor and check how a student was performing academically, they now have so much more pressure on them that students are burning the midnight oil to study for an exam. This results in some students becoming ill due to stress and lack of sleep. They have become more and more stressful and, even worse, a constriction to the ideal of learning.

It is a well known fact that when it comes to exams, students compete, not only with themselves, but with other students. They no longer want to see an increase in their knowledge, but want to beat other people to the top of the class. Even parents take exams as a race to see whose children are more intelligent.

Students shouldn’t be judged on their performance on one day when they might be ill. The exams might not be completely representative of the student’s skills as everyone can have a bad day.

They are a poor method of assessment as they don’t reflect the use of knowledge in a practical environment. They don’t reflect how well you’ll be able to use your knowledge in real world occupations.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Many successful individuals are bad at exams but can perform well under other methods of assessment such as essays and oral presentations which still prepare students in coping with pressure. Some people would argue that exams are not a fair assessment of intelligence and aren’t favourable to those with poor memory skills, those who suffer under pressure, and those who get so nervous in such situations that they shut down in exams. It’s very easy to know content but to completely fail an exam because you are nervous. They aren’t an accurate representation of a student’s knowledge as some people are just better at taking exams than others. If you happen to mess up in your exams due to stress or panic then your goals can disintegrate leaving you unable to reach your full potential and having to settle for second best. SATs are taking the pleasure out of learning for many students and pressurising teachers to ‘teach the test’ rather than teaching for meaning, understanding, critical thinking and pleasure. Should schools become exam result factories or institutions which create well-rounded human beings? This problem must be addressed to reduce the number of pupils who suffer from forms of neurosis or depression due to this country’s narrow minded approach to education.

Those students cramming in last-minute study will have to put aside their social lives, have to sacrifice their sleep and will be under great pressure and tension. Coursework is also a problem when you have exams and should not collide with exam revision.

In humanity subjects such as History, Geography and social sciences, analysis and application of what has been learned is important and cannot be assessed through exams.

If exams were abolished then students would have more time to learn new material instead of being tested and revising. Testing can be performed in many other ways than a 3 hour exam which decides your fate. The vast majority of exams are based on the student’s ability to recall, in the space of 2 or 3 hours, details of a subject which is generally vast in its scope.

The vital point is that those students who enjoy greatest success are not necessarily those who have the best grasp of the subject, but most often those who have successfully anticipated the questions which will appear on the paper. This is, of course, not the only problem. Exams create unnecessary pressure and the poorly planned exam schedules only add to this. Who would deny that they would rather have 5 exams spread over 2 weeks rather than 5 exams in the space of 4 days, leaving little time to readjust?  Furthermore, exams aren’t adequate preparation for working life and test only your memory of a subject rather than all-round knowledge that properly conceived coursework can afford. It is undoubtedly important to test knowledge as well as all round skills, but this can be done much more fairly through methods such as essays and the appropriate use of coursework than through the traditional hellish world of end-of-year exams.

Fairer forms of assessment include more coursework, oral presentation, continuous assessments throughout the year and term papers as well as project work.

Education should be more about what is drawn out of people that what is drummed into them and this is not done through examinations.

In modern day education, familiarity with word processing, desktop publishing and powerpoint is a valuable asset and whilst essays and oral presentations allow the student to demonstrate these skills, traditional exams require students to write essays with a pen and paper – a very unnatural endeavour in the 21 st  century.

Are exams a valid form of assessment of simply a memory test? You decide.

Teacher Reviews

Here's what a teacher thought of this essay.

Laura Gater

There are some attempts to include persuasive devices in this piece of writing and these points are creative and imaginative. The piece needs a very clear plan so points move fluidly from one to the next without repetition. 4 Stars

Document Details

• Word Count 889
• Page Count 1
• Level AS and A Level
• Subject English

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Argumentative Essay Topic – Should Competitive Examinations Be Abolished?

Should Competitive Examinations Be Abolished? You can find Previous Year Argumentative Essay Topics asked in ICSE board exams.

Introduction: What is competitive examination?

• Need for competitive examinations
• Competitive examinations act like an imperfect sieve; it does not test a candidate’s suitability.
• Only knowledge tested, other important attributes are overlooked.
• Competitive examinations being highly subjective
• Need to augment by considering attributes, like personality, character and will power

Conclusion: Need to augment the existing system to make it realistic and objective

All examinations are competitive in nature, as each Candidate tries to secure the maximum marks. This is prevalent in studies as well as in every sphere of human activity and is the secret of our growth and development. Hence competitive examinations should not be abolished.

Competitive examinations are held to select candidates for civil services, banks or for admission to reputed colleges. Such examinations are considered an egalitarian way of choosing worthy applicants without favouritism, influence or any other consideration. The selection process therefore, uses the procedure of elimination, and selects candidates purely on the basis of their performance in the written examination. It tests candidates on specific subjects, knowledge, traits and analytical reasoning. This is necessary because a large number of candidates apply for limited vacancies which make the competition tough.

Such a selection process is purely subjective and faulty. It tests a candidate’s knowledge on a certain subject, mental ability and awareness, but does not judge other essential traits that are necessary for a particular job. Take for example the Indian Civil Service examination for recruiting people to the Indian Administrative Services. Every year lakhs of candidates appear for the examination, which evaluates their knowledge on certain subjects, quite oblivious to the fact, that there are more essential attributes required for a civil servant, like administrative ability, man management, tact, diplomacy and quick decision-making.

Thus competitive examinations act like an imperfect sieve, through which candidates are selected subjectively, without analysing their suitability for the job. There is need for a proper form of evaluation, whereby an applicant’s potential can be objectively judged, taking into account his/her suitability for the job.

Competitive examinations being highly subjective, candidates pass them by selective cramming. This knowledge is therefore, superficial and hence, easily forgotten. It defeats the very purpose of selecting people with real knowledge and skill. This is proven by the fact that toppers in schools or colleges are not always successful, while mediocre ones, deemed by the present competitive examination excel in life.

There is therefore need to augment the present system of examination. Other important attributes, like personality, character and will power also need to be evaluated. These are essential qualities for any responsible position, especially for a civil servant.

Despite all its anomalies there is need for some form of examination to select candidates from the teeming millions. Perhaps the existing system could be augmented with psychographic tests, group discussions, group tasks and personal interviews to get a more realistic and objective assessment of the candidate’s other qualities beside knowledge. This would enable it to achieve the purpose for which it was intended.

Assignments

• ‘The ills of the present examination system.’ State your views on the subject.
• ‘Too many examinations are of little value.’ Discuss the statement.
• ‘Examinations work like an imperfect sieve.’ Discus the statement

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Critic’s Pick

‘Civil War’ Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again.

In Alex Garland’s tough new movie, a group of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst, as a photographer, travels a United States at war with itself.

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‘Civil War’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The writer and director alex garland narrates a sequence from his film..

“My name is Alex Garland and I’m the writer director of ‘Civil War’. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and it’s these four journalists and they’re trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. It’s a surrealist exchange and it’s surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is they’re, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, there’s no indication that we’re anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell it’s summer. But they’re surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you haven’t put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isn’t going right.” “What’s going on?” “Someone in that house, they’re stuck. We’re stuck.” “And there’s a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didn’t create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and he’d gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, there’s a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life.” “You don’t understand a word I say. Yo. What’s over there in that house?” “Someone shooting.” “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”

By Manohla Dargis

A blunt, gut-twisting work of speculative fiction, “Civil War” opens with the United States at war with itself — literally, not just rhetorically. In Washington, D.C., the president is holed up in the White House; in a spookily depopulated New York, desperate people wait for water rations. It’s the near-future, and rooftop snipers, suicide bombers and wild-eyed randos are in the fight while an opposition faction with a two-star flag called the Western Forces, comprising Texas and California — as I said, this is speculative fiction — is leading the charge against what remains of the federal government. If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.

It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right. It’s one thing when a movie taps into childish fears with monsters under the bed; you’re eager to see what happens because you know how it will end (until the sequel). Adult fears are another matter.

In “Civil War,” the British filmmaker Alex Garland explores the unbearable if not the unthinkable, something he likes to do. A pop cultural savant, he made a splashy zeitgeist-ready debut with his 1996 best seller “The Beach,” a novel about a paradise that proves deadly, an evergreen metaphor for life and the basis for a silly film . That things in the world are not what they seem, and are often far worse, is a theme that Garland has continued pursuing in other dark fantasies, first as a screenwriter (“ 28 Days Later ”), and then as a writer-director (“ Ex Machina ”). His résumé is populated with zombies, clones and aliens, though reliably it is his outwardly ordinary characters you need to keep a closer watch on.

By the time “Civil War” opens, the fight has been raging for an undisclosed period yet long enough to have hollowed out cities and people’s faces alike. It’s unclear as to why the war started or who fired the first shot. Garland does scatter some hints; in one ugly scene, a militia type played by a jolting, scarily effective Jesse Plemons asks captives “what kind of American” they are. Yet whatever divisions preceded the conflict are left to your imagination, at least partly because Garland assumes you’ve been paying attention to recent events. Instead, he presents an outwardly and largely post-ideological landscape in which debates over policies, politics and American exceptionalism have been rendered moot by war.

‘Civil War’ Is Designed to Disturb You

One thing that remains familiar amid these ruins is the movie’s old-fashioned faith in journalism. Dunst, who’s sensational, plays Lee, a war photographer who works for Reuters alongside her friend, a reporter, Joel (the charismatic Wagner Moura). They’re in New York when you meet them, milling through a crowd anxiously waiting for water rations next to a protected tanker. It’s a fraught scene; the restless crowd is edging into mob panic, and Lee, camera in hand, is on high alert. As Garland’s own camera and Joel skitter about, Lee carves a path through the chaos, as if she knows exactly where she needs to be — and then a bomb goes off. By the time it does, an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), is also in the mix.

The streamlined, insistently intimate story takes shape once Lee, Joel, Jessie and a veteran reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), pile into a van and head to Washington. Joel and Lee are hoping to interview the president (Nick Offerman), and Sammy and Jessie are riding along largely so that Garland can make the trip more interesting. Sammy serves as a stabilizing force (Henderson fills the van with humanizing warmth), while Jessie plays the eager upstart Lee takes under her resentful wing. It’s a tidily balanced sampling that the actors, with Garland’s banter and via some cozy downtime, turn into flesh-and-blood personalities, people whose vulnerability feeds the escalating tension with each mile.

As the miles and hours pass, Garland adds diversions and hurdles, including a pair of playful colleagues, Tony and Bohai (Nelson Lee and Evan Lai), and some spooky dudes guarding a gas station. Garland shrewdly exploits the tense emptiness of the land, turning strangers into potential threats and pretty country roads into ominously ambiguous byways. Smartly, he also recurrently focuses on Lee’s face, a heartbreakingly hard mask that Dunst lets slip brilliantly. As the journey continues, Garland further sketches in the bigger picture — the dollar is near-worthless, the F.B.I. is gone — but for the most part, he focuses on his travelers and the engulfing violence, the smoke and the tracer fire that they often don’t notice until they do.

Despite some much-needed lulls (for you, for the narrative rhythm), “Civil War” is unremittingly brutal or at least it feels that way. Many contemporary thrillers are far more overtly gruesome than this one, partly because violence is one way unimaginative directors can put a distinctive spin on otherwise interchangeable material: Cue the artful fountains of arterial spray. Part of what makes the carnage here feel incessant and palpably realistic is that Garland, whose visual approach is generally unfussy, doesn’t embellish the violence, turning it into an ornament of his virtuosity. Instead, the violence is direct, at times shockingly casual and unsettling, so much so that its unpleasantness almost comes as a surprise.

If the violence feels more intense than in a typical genre shoot ’em up, it’s also because, I think, with “Civil War,” Garland has made the movie that’s long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture, and which entered wider circulation on Jan. 6. The raw power of Garland’s vision unquestionably owes much to the vivid scenes that beamed across the world that day when rioters, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “ MAGA civil war ,” swarmed the Capitol. Even so, watching this movie, I also flashed on other times in which Americans have relitigated the Civil War directly and not, on the screen and in the streets.

Movies have played a role in that relitigation for more than a century, at times grotesquely. Two of the most famous films in history — D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic “The Birth of a Nation” (which became a Ku Klux Klan recruitment tool) and the romantic 1939 melodrama “Gone With the Wind” — are monuments to white supremacy and the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Both were critical and popular hits. In the decades since, filmmakers have returned to the Civil War era to tell other stories in films like “Glory,” “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” that in addressing the American past inevitably engage with its present.

There are no lofty or reassuring speeches in “Civil War,” and the movie doesn’t speak to the better angels of our nature the way so many films try to. Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in “Civil War.” The very premise of Garland’s movie means that — no matter what happens when or if Lee and the rest reach Washington — a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

Civil War Rated R for war violence and mass death. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an organization in the Civil War in the movie. It is the Western Forces, not the Western Front.

How we handle corrections

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.