Band 6+: Some experts believe a competitive environment is necessary to motivate students to study effectively, whereas others disagree and think that this could potentially result in an excessive amount of stress.

A competitive environment may have both positive and negative aspects when it comes to the motivation of students in order to study effectively. I personally disagree with the fact that competition can cause distress towards students; however, being in a competitive environment may help stimulate the students’ brain to push themselves to their fullest potential.

Competition can be beneficial for those who’d like to improve themselves academically as students may desire to become the best version of themselves. This would increase the study efficiency for students as they would be more motivated to learn and acquire new knowledge and skills. With competition, students are able to realize their mistakes by learning through their peers who are competitively ahead and later on reflect on their studies, further leading to constant self-improvement and positive self-reflection.

However, competition may become unhealthy to an extent. Competition may contribute to a student’s life by causing the most undesirable thing anybody could ever ask for: stress. Stress plays a massive role in the lives of students due to pressures from school, peers, and possibly other factors. Since individuals work differently under pressure, students who are loaded with countless assignments from school are more prone to stress, and this may halt their learning process. With competition, students live in anguish over the fact that they may heavily criticize and compare themselves with their peers, which may lead to serious mental health issues. As a student’s mental health worsens, the way they think may cause them to think they are a disappointment as they believe that they are unable to achieve what that other person has achieved, thus creating a sense of failure. This may hinder students from genuinely trying to unleash their fullest potential, usually resulting in yielding to pressure.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that competition may help bring out the best in students, which may be beneficial for their studies in the long term, but it may also cause damage in the student’s self-esteem, mental health, as well as their will to accomplish a goal due to how overwhelmed and exhausted they are.