> Does anybody have any background on why US Universities seem to universally focus on continuous summative assessment rather than formative assessment followed

> Does anybody have any background on why US Universities seem to universally focus on continuous summative assessment rather than formative assessment followed by summative assessment at the conclusion of a course? Because a single summative assessment is worse? Honestly, a single 3 hour exam is a horrible way to assess your mastery of practially any material. There are few "good" ways to assess large classes of students for mastery. Small classess of students have a lot more flexibility. However, you can also get the problem that if the professor simply doesn't like you, you have no recourse--hopefully that class wasn't a requirement for your major. I have been on both sides of this argument (lecturer and student). I had a Computer Arithmetic and an Analog Filters classes that were ferocious about grading--you had to be 100% correct or you got zero. That is really rough--if you blew an exam you dropped. When lecturing in CS, I tended to be a little different--exams got a lot of partial credit, homework got some partial credit, but the 5 or 6 projects were 100% or nothing. Of course, the difference there was that I had automated testing running and you could resubmit your project as often as you wanted over about 2 weeks. This was probably the best compromise I've come up with. It drives the students without pounding them, and it limits the destruction if you're just kind of "off" on a day when there is an exam.