You're correct. I taught high school history for several years and used in-class essay responses as the primary testing method. Essays allowed me to understand

You're correct. I taught high school history for several years and used in-class essay responses as the primary testing method. Essays allowed me to understand what students actually know and how their overall knowledge on a topic has developed. Multiple choice-style questions (or any memorization-style question) do test knowledge, but I regularly found that many of the students who could easily memorize facts had a hard time explaining them in a coherent essay describing how the events were interconnected. And students who might get a C on memorization tests often had a better grasp of the period as a whole. Unfortunately, most teachers don't want to take the time to read essay responses because shoving scantron tests through a machine is much easier and less time consuming.