The Disadvantages of an Essay Test

• Eyes of the Beholder. Essay exams are graded by human eyes and intellect, leaving lots of room for human error.
• Tunnel Vision Testing. The essay can’t help but test part of the lessons covered in the classroom.
• More Work for Teacher. Time is one of the most well known disadvantages of essay testing.
• Testing Anxiety.

Other Question and Answers that can be helpful for you

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of essay test?

3. Essay items are good for testing small numbers of students. However, as the number of student increases, the advantage of essay test decreases. 1. Essay questions are time consuming to teachers and students. Students often spend much time answering only one or two essay questions.

2. What are the limitations of essay tests?

One of the serious limitations of the essay tests is that these tests do not give scope for larger sampling of the content. You cannot sample the course content so well with six lengthy essay questions as you can with 60 multiple-choice test items. 2. Such tests encourage selective reading and emphasise cramming.

3. What is the worst part of taking an essay test?

Charles Champlin (2006), a journalist for Time and Life magazines, describes his experience of taking essay tests as a student at Harvard: “The worst were the essay questions (which seemed only distantly related to whatever you’d read or heard in lectures). They made a statement and then simply said, ‘Discuss.’

4. What makes an essay difficult to answer?

This can happen when the essay question is vague or open to numerous interpretations. Remember that effective essay questions provide students with an indication of the types of thinking and content to use in responding to the essay question” (Reiner, 2002).