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Jenna Sowards

Professor Madden

English Composition II

23 June 2019

Research Proposal Paper

The topic that I chose to write about is should exams do a little more than just measure a

student`s ability, and should exams be prohibited for approval of another structure of

assessment? The main reason why I choose this topic was due to the fact that I have always

struggled with exams or any assessment in general. So, it is one of those topics that is very

personal to me and that I could see myself connecting with this while I am writing about the

topic. This topic motivated me to pick this one for a reason I know that I am not the only one that

struggles with assessments. I have struggled with exams or any assessment that I had to take

while I was in school. I would study for my exams and once I got into the classroom I would

psych myself out that I would just forget everything that I have been studying and preparing

myself for. Therefore, this topic is so close to my heart and I feel for those students that struggle

with this just like I do, so my biggest takeaway for struggling from this is to give it all you got,

even if you don’t do good at least you went with the saying “Go Big or Go Home”.

I feel confident about this topic for the reason that I can relate to this topic a hundred

percent. I think this topic is a great topic to do research on since you will have the opportunity to

read about what you already knew, what you want to know, or what you didn’t know about this

topic. I believe that this topic is overlooked because I don’t think people believe that students

have this problem with test anxiety. Teachers and other people think that the student just don’t
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study and prepare when in reality they do study, they just have really bad test anxiety. In which

people do not think test anxiety is a thing, until you actually have it or experience it. I already

know that there are so many other forms of assessment out there. I also feel that there is a lot of

information that can help you with the struggle that you are having with test anxiety or just a

student`s ability in general.

The facts that I still need to know about my topic is that I am hoping to learn about what

can we do for assessments than to just assess our student`s ability to take them. I think I will start

finding the answers to these questions that I have when I begin researching my topic and learning

about the topic in general way more than I knew before I started researching it. The first research

question I have about this topic is, what are ways or tools that you can do to overcome your test

anxiety? The second research question I have is, are there any other forms of assessment that

does not assess the measures of the student`s ability to take it but just to see where a student is

without judging them or having a letter or percent by their name?