Negative Effects Of Grades

Grades are just numbers. They do not measure intelligence, in the same way that age doesn 't define maturity. At least once, majority of students in school have experienced getting poor grades. These grades are forcing them to be “smart” and, to such a great extent, they feel stressed and pressured. In fact, grades actually do extra harm to them than good since they have negative effects on students’ mental health. They lack the indication of students’ knowledge as they are only a depiction of their effort. Absences, laziness, and disengagements are just a few of the factors of why grades are a poor representation of students’ intellectual capacity. While others may argue that grades motivate them, it is not genuinely correct since grades encourage

(Co) In fact, it is also correct that grades have negative effects on students’ mental condition. Illnesses such as depression, cancer, etc, have a cause on the outcome of students’ grades due to absences. (Horton) If sickness is the cause of low grades, grades are inaccurate to measure their ability to learn. Grades can dramatically drop because 26% of Americans, 14 years old and older, experience mental disabilities such as anxiety and major depression (Ramirez). Shockingly, the main cause of their mental illnesses is because of school, including grades. Students who attend school more often actually get high-average grades, in contrast to the ones who are always absent (Horton). In addition, depression and anxiety heavily affect their performance in school. “Extreme anxiety, severe clinical depression, obsessive compulsive order attention deficit disorder… are illnesses that are related to memory loss are examples of such dysfunctions that may lead to procrastination,” says Brandon Gaille, a psychology researcher. Again, procrastination is one reason why students fail to do work. Grades are said to drive students to push themselves even more, yet it is not entirely true. Some students cheat, causing their grades to fly high, and that doesn’t reflect wit at all. In a survey of 24,000 students at 70 high schools, Donald McCabe (Rutgers University) found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent for plagiarism, and 95 percent for some other form of cheating. (Facts) This proves that grades are more likely to cause students to cheat than to motivate