‘Paper and pen’ examination is the traditional method used in most countries. However, society has changed a lot due to the growth of humanity’s knowledge. Therefore, there are some claimed that the formal ‘pen and paper’ test is no longer the top method for checking skills and knowledge of the students. Personally, I agree with this idea.
We all can see that formal examination has some inevitable disadvantages. Firstly, it always costs a lot on printing, and after the test, those paper will become waste and they can be dumped in a bad process that damaged on the nature. Secondly, because it is a very old method, the students can figure out hundreds ways to cheat in ‘paper and pen’ exams. That will be unfair for the students who study properly, and it will make the quality of the test go down.
Beside the formal way to assess educational achievement, we can use innovative method to qualify the student, for instance: interview test, computer test,… New assessment will harder to cheat as students won’t understand the function clearly. Using suitable way to test the student will help the examiners know the scholars’ good and bad.
It is hard to contend that we don’t need ‘paper and pen’ examination anymore. But we should change the way to qualify students, because the world is different from the past a lot, the traditional exam can’t be the best method to test the students.