Grades encourage students to learn

IELTS Writing Task 2 with sample answer.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Grades (marks) encourage students to learn.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Sample Answer:
Grades have long been the primary mean of assessing students’ mastery. Many educators contend that grades motivate pupils to learn, while others hold the opposite. In the case, I am of my hones opinion that grades only lure students to learn to achieve a good mark but there is a gulf between test-oriented learning and true learning.

To start with, grades tend to decreased pupils’ interest in whatever they are learning. A grade orientation and learning orientation can be seemed to be inversely related. As far as I can tell that every study that has ever delved into the impact on intrinsic motivation of attaining grades or emphasize placed on only the importance of getting good grades has found a negative upshot. Let me clarify a bit more. Grades tend to create a predilection for the easiest possible tasks. Students intensely feel that what they are doing will be gauged by grades, and their response will likely be to avoid taking inessential intellectual risks. They all prefer shorter books or a project on an easy topic in order to ensure good grades. This is not because they are unenthusiastic, but because they are rational. They are responding to their parents, teachers who, by telling that the object is achieve a good mark, have conveyed the message that success matters more than learning. For example, I always was told that you had to achieve a good grade. Thereby, I only read what was necessary for receiving good grades. Now I can discern that I miss a lot of things to learn.

Similarly, grades also have negative impact on students’ thinking process. It abates the quality of students’ thinking. They only skim books for what they will need to know regarding grades. They are less likely to ponder, say, “How can we solve the problem?” than to ask” will this on the test?” For instance, I just contemplated on merely the topics what had chance to be on the test.

To wrap up, upon consideration of the above discussion, I remain steadfast in my belief that grades do not encourage true learn at all. We have to rethink the matter and should devise its solution.