assessment

The word “assessment” means a judgment or evaluation of something, or the amount of tax or duty charged. In plain terms, a formal judgment or evaluation of how good, serious, or valuable something is.

“Assessment” is pronounced uh-SEHS-muhnt (/əˈsɛsmənt/ in IPA).

Here is “assessment” used in a sentence: “The doctor's assessment was that she needed more rest.”

“Assessment” is a noun.

“Assessment” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the B2 level.

The two overlap, but assessment usually means gathering information and measuring something, such as a student's progress, a risk, or a property's value. Evaluation goes a step further, judging worth or quality against a standard to reach a conclusion. Assessment collects the evidence; evaluation interprets it to decide how good or effective something is.

In education the two best-known types are formative assessment, which checks progress along the way to guide learning, and summative assessment, which measures final achievement, such as an exam. Beyond the classroom, common types include risk assessments, medical assessments, and tax assessments, each measuring or judging something specific.

A written end-of-term exam is a familiar assessment, measuring what a student has learned. Other examples include a doctor evaluating a patient's symptoms, a surveyor judging a building's condition, or a council setting the tax assessment on a property. Each involves examining something carefully to reach a measured judgment.