Purpose:
It is the quintessential “high-stake” learning exercise where a student’s academic future can depend on “hitting the book” and achieving a high numerical result. Common complaints include such assessments driving students to despair and discouraging intrinsic motivation, “teach to the test” and “rote learning”, and memorizing and regurgitating to pass the exam instead of learning the knowledge the test is supposed to assess. For proponents and supporters of summative assessments in China, one common argument is that it is comparative a “fair” way to assess millions of students spread over a wide geographic area, some (ie: Shanghai, Beijing) with significantly more resources than other areas. They are taught in more or less the same national curriculum and are being assessed on a broad range of concepts stipulated by the national government. It “lessens” the disparity resulted from economic development and somewhat “levels the playing field” of high-stake exams.
It is the most recognizable form of assessment, “study X for the test”. In China, the famous or infamous civil service exam, the ultimate summative exam to join the government bureaucracy, can be traced back 1500 years ago. Modern iterations include the SAT, TOELF, IELTS, the Chinese college entrance exam (Gaokao) and high school entrance exam (zhongkao).