No. Final exams only indicate one skill set. It's important to engage students in the subjects they learn. Projects are at least as important as tests or homework. And the latter only reflects the student's home environment, not his/her academic ability.

In a test-to-pass system, the converse is true. I object to a system that flunks you because you miss or fail a 'final exam.'

My High School Spanish teacher gave me an F for missing the final because I was hospitalized with the flu! The teacher refused to reschedule the test and told the principal that I didn't care enough about school. My lowest grade until that point was around 85 (in a class where over 75% of the students spoke Spanish at home).

Point is, tests and homework aren't everything.

This would only work if the final exam was comprehensive. Frequently classes are structured to have smaller tests to make sure you've absorbed that month's information, a midterm to ensure you know the first half, then a final to show that you understand the later material. Without the other tests, the teacher doesn't know if you've actually studied the complete course. So if the final test is a complete overview of everything, then sure, but since most finals aren't, just the final is not enough.

Tests just measure your ability to memorize facts or formulas. Homework and classwork reinforce learning so students can retain the information they are exposed to. If you pass a final exam, you could either know the material very well or studied like hell for a few days for that one test while slacking off an all other classwork.

Having the final exam being the only important assignment to passing a class will undoubtedly encourage students to not even attempt homework assignments or other classwork, or study for other tests. Not a very efficient system of education (if imparting knowledge is the actual goal, rather than receiving a piece of paper to show off and get a better job, whether or not competence was required to obtain said piece of paper).

That said, I don't think students should automatically fail the class if they don't pass the final; if grades really did reflect the learning progress of a particular student, I think the overall grade should be important. Though grades don't always ensure a student getting the most out of an education. Back when I was in high school, I passed Geometry with flying colors (class rank 1), but subsequently forgot 70% of what we learned in that class over the summer. Not very good when a year and a half later I took the SAT's. That sucked.

This definitely depends on the class.

For math, because if you can memorize the formulas (and understand them) you will do well on a test, this makes sense.

But in the many sciences, labs are a very necessary part as the application is more important than the memorization.

For a written final, I think if you can display an understanding of the course-material, barring other circumstances, you should be allowed to pass.

For the working world, though, it doesn't set very good habits.

The fate of a person's future should not be decided in a single day. Also, people work better in different situations; some are good at the pressure of a test, others are better at the long term preperation and execution of coursework. This is why a broad spectrum of work is used to mark a class, and it should probably stay that way.

Although, I think the whole concept of our education systems are flawed.

If you could cut the busywork of a subject someone already knows, then they could spend less money and time in school. Of course, the tests have to be in depth, and have good security. No Cheating. ;)

homework is there as a mechanism to expose you to information repeatedly so as to better ensure that you retain information. having said this, if i can pass a final exam then i have achieved the desired result. unless of course I were cheating...but that is another issue.

In most advanced subjects, (pretty much hight school and up) to memorize formula and facts actually does require quite a bit of abstract knowledge to use them. ex. Just because you know who Aquitaine and Claudius and Nero are and when they ruled can you write an essay or even answer simple multiple choice questions about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. That would take some outside education and a fairly smart person without a whole lot of structured reading.

Outside of the liberal arts (and even those really take a decent amount of time to grasp) in the math/science/engineering fields. The reason that they often have problems from the end of the semester on the final is that the rest of the time is building up understanding on which formulas to apply in which case and how to correctly use them.

This means that if you innately "get" the subject matter well enough to just pass a final, doesn't that mean that the class was a waste of your time that could be better spent on a subject that you do not have a natural talent for?

So long as the final exam is completely comprehensive of the entire body of knowledge taught in the class. That is not always possible and in some other instances may be hard to do. However, if it was true and you ace the test then A+ it is.

Yes, homework is for suckers. As long as you understand the concepts well enough to pass the final exam, then who cares about all the crappy busy work that the teacher gives you? It really shouldn't be taken in to consideration for the final grade.

I passed ur goddam test. What more do you want?????

The rest is padding to make the less able pass more easily.

I passed all of grade school this way. I was smart enough to do all of the homework, but I just didn't want to. Without acing test scores I wouldn't have made it passed 3rd grade.