Judgment has a negative effect on the efficiency of learning. Being graded causes stress and stress reduces your ability to learn. Grading can be a motivator,

Judgment has a negative effect on the efficiency of learning. Being graded causes stress and stress reduces your ability to learn. Grading can be a motivator, however, causing you to push yourself to learn things you might not otherwise be motivated to do. However, I think that learning without judgment is the most effective way to learn, when you otherwise have some intrinsic motivation. Likewise, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect which is not the same, but another effect that causes an extrinsic factor to diminish intrinsic motivation. When I learn for my own benefit, all of my efforts are focused on developing new skills and new understanding. When I am learning to pass some test, my efforts are focused instead on not failing. If these tools are used to guide study to make sure students get the requisite knowledge then they can be effective. I think they lose effectiveness when they are instead used to classify and rank students. I have always scored well on tests, but I've always learned and understood things more fully doing things that were at my own direction.