While Hugh has a point about the importance of feedback that should not distract from Harold's original provocation (or rather the interpretation that tickles me): that summative assessment and teaching may not in fact be the natural bedfellows education history has led us to assume. In situations where assessment is executed by a central/third-party authority (eg most capstone secondary school qualifications), the role and typical behaviour of the teacher is different to situations where the teacher is also judge (and executioner). Having said that, I believe the two situations are still more similar than different because the capital fact of both is the looming assessment itself. "To the student the assessment is the curriculum" (and that makes them dependent learners).