Haven’t we all heard that one person that comes out of an exam and totally contradicts your own opinion of how the last hour and a half went? Whether it is the person that finished in under half the given time or someone that failed to complete a single question.

Recently the amount of upheaval to the education system has led to some critics stating that exams are just not challenging enough for the people that are going to be responsible for the future of the country. Is this true or is it wrong to turn the heat up in the exam hall when a lot of students would argue the total opposite. How is it possible to decide whether the exams our students are sitting are actually too hard or whether we simply have a high level of gifted pupils? It is estimated that in the year 2015 nearly 6.6% achieved the highest Grades A* at GCSE level, this was 0.1% down on the last year. This is seen by some to be a sign that exams are not challenged enough, and this is therefore isn’t preparing students enough for the real world. The question over exams themselves has been raised and whether these are an accurate interpretation of students, and whether course-work based assessment a better indication of a person’s strengths. It would appear that the Government feel like the latter isn’t as successful with many course-work units being totally eliminated from the syllabus. By some this has been considered the wrong approach with many critics of government policy being adamant that course-work is better through its judgement of a student’s ability over a set amount of time rather than a whole year (or more) grade being decided in a time of little over an hour. Despite the conflicting views it is obvious that the government have reverted back to the more ‘old fashioned’ system of final exams, but the argument still rages on whether or not it is fair to say exams are just simply too easy. Both sides cannot see the others argument with teachers seeing first-hand how challenging a lot of students find the concept of exams, and also the levels of stress that is created by the build-up and preparation for exams, and the opposite view is from people who ‘simply don’t understand the system’ and are ‘old fashioned’. Asking most students and the possibility of exams getting even harder rings alarm bells with students. People against exam reforms finally argue that it isn’t only the exam, but it is the fact that having multiple exams at once that causes even more stress, and this therefore ends the possibility of ever being able to accept this possibility.

However, whatever your opinion on this matter it is obvious that there will be more changes to the education system in the future, and as we are seriously unlikely to see anything set in stone in the near future, and if you’ve got exams looming it might get a whole lot tougher yet.