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Education & Teaching vocabulary · Assessment and Grading

Summative assessment

Meaning in education & teaching, with examples

nounCore term

In education & teaching, summative assessment means: Assessment at the end of a unit, term or course that measures what students have learned, usually to give a grade or make a decision.

In Turkish: düzey belirleyici değerlendirme, sonuç değerlendirme, özetleyici değerlendirme

How it is used

Often described as 'assessment of learning'. End-of-unit tests, final exams and graded projects are summative. Teachers plan, set or mark summative assessments, and the results go into reports.

Example sentences

  1. The summative assessment for this unit is a lab report worth 30 percent of the final grade.

  2. We moderate all summative assessments so that every class is marked to the same standard.

Common collocations

  • end-of-unit summative assessment
  • summative assessment task
  • set a summative assessment
  • summative results
  • formative assessmentAssessment that takes place during learning to check how students are progressing and to adjust teaching, rather than to give a final grade.
  • examA formal test of students' knowledge or skills, usually taken at a fixed time and place under controlled conditions; short for examination.
  • gradeA letter or number that shows how good a student's work or overall performance is; in American schools it also means a school year level, as in fifth grade.
  • standardized testA test that all students take under the same conditions, with the same or equivalent questions, and that is scored in the same way so results can be compared.

More terms: Assessment and Grading

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