Question

What are the differences between formative and summative assessments? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Answer 1

Formative assessment refers to the continuous assessment that take place over a long period of time, may be three to ten depending on the subject requirement. An average of all the assignments would be taken at the end. Summative assessment refers to the one time, end of term or semester exam.
One of the most important advantage of formative assessments is that people would be constantly be in touch of the subject matter, which would be missing in the submarine assessment because students would study only before the exam. The advantage of summative assessment is that it would include all the portions covered so far, thus assessing the overall subject concepts. Summative assessment brings more strict completion of portions and concepts because the assessments would come one after the other within a short span of time. Formative assessment on the other hand would give enough breathing and preparation time for both the teacher and the students.