Help Critique my GRE Essay? :)

[absande]

I'm using Magoosh as my GRE Study Prep, and following the guidelines they used! I got the topic off the ETS website and used a random generator to pick the topic. I timed myself exactly 30 minutes. This is my first attempt, so it's probably pretty rough :) and this is an Issue Task Essay!

 

Topic:

Educators should base their assessment of students' learning not on students' grasp of facts but on the ability to explain the ideas, trends, and concepts that those facts illustrate.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

 

Essay:

            Almost everyone at some point in their lifetime will take a test to assess their knowledge supposedly learned on a certain subject matter. Educators should base this assessment of a student’s knowledge, not simply by testing their factual remembrance and memory, but also by questioning how they can apply that information into real world situations.

            Schools and other educational programs have become to be known as teaching through memorization. They are assessing their students’ using test after test, and enforcing them to study via flashcards and other memory-strengthening tools. This continues throughout the length of the class, ending the program with similar assessments that they began with. This shows that the educators are focusing more on cramming the students with factual information, rather than them building upon the knowledge they have already been taught and assessing them in a new manner.

            While it is imperative for students to have and hold on to this knowledge of factual material, they must be able to understand the big picture in order to apply it to real world situations. Simply knowing or recognizing terminology will not suffice once they must use this knowledge they have learned into their field later in life. An aspiring scientist might know a single chemical reaction, but if they cannot apply this to a bigger, broader experiment, then the information can be deemed useless.

            With this being said, grasping facts is the foundation of their ability to explain bigger ideas and concepts of that subject. To an extent, assessing students’ understanding of the basic facts of a subject is imperative before expecting them to be able to comprehend and explain the more elusive concepts that make up everyday life. Therefor, teachers should assess students on their comprehension of factual information before moving on to more difficult material in the hierarchy of the subject. Though, this is not saying that these kinds of assessments should be the sole basis of the students’ understanding of an entire subject.

             Educators assessing the true knowledge learned by their students is much more complex than a simple factual multiple-choice test. Teachers need to go more in depth in their assessments in order to prove that their students’ can understand and explain difficult concepts and ideas regarding the subject they have apparently been teaching.