Assessment is life changing?

Not sure I agree with Obi-care One's contention that assessment should be life changing. I can't think of any assessment in my life that has been that radical. Think the journey part of assessment is safer ground and therefore the assessment merely becomes a validation of the learning journey but in that moment of assessment it often invalidates the prior learning because if it has been a positive experience it is possibly unassessable in terms of a viable assessment instrument. I.e. can the assessment instrument actually measure what has been learnt? I know that somebody will come back with 'Well that depends on the quality of the assessment instrument' etc, etc. but in my experience the most valuable learning cannot necessarily measured. After all, we have virtually no idea how the brain works and therefore consciousness is effectively beyond our comprehension and therefore do we really understand learning? If we don't how can we measure it? This leads to questions of why we need to measure learning in the ways that we currently do. Reasonable assessment is undoubtedly desirable for a variety of reasons but a vast amount of it is just state control.......................................