Patrick O 'Malley's Essay More Testing, More Learning'

Devang Patel
Professor Jane Burkhardt
English 101
February 7, 2016
Paper #1
More Exams, More Stress In the essay, “More Testing, More Learning” by Patrick O’Malley made a proposal while he a first-year college student that college professor should give more frequency exams that giving just a midterm and final exams. By having two main exams, brings a lot of stress to students, making it a priority in student life for two days, and the ability to perform on those exams is why students scoreless on those exams. O'Malley goes on and suggest that professors should give more frequent short exams that "should take no more than 15 to 20 minutes” so other time can be used to cover the course material (O’Malley 291). But there are few counter-arguments

Professors spending time behind frequent exams and less time behind lecture, students are on their own to learn for next weekly exams. While this is beneficial to students who learn more from self-learning rather than someone teaching to them. It is unacceptable because students, who learn differently than self-learners, would be left behind in the course. They would not only struggle in course but also on weekly exams, which would bring their grades down significantly. As O’Malley states, “frequent exams could be given in place of a midterm exam or out-of-class essay assignment” (294). Giving frequent exams in place of midterm exams would just overrule the point of having a midterm, which is able to see where the student is and how well a student is doing half way through the

As of stress, it goes either way – positive stress and negative stress. Eustress, positive stress, a word coined by Hans Selye, can actually motivate people to do something, achieve more goals. While destress brings people down from achieving something leading to health effect. Either way, stress can sometimes be beneficial to do and get things done before deadlines because there would be consequences if it goes past deadlines. That’s why planning out things ahead of time, working hard, have a self-confidence, but not overconfidence, and believing in self’s can help get the task done without