Midterms Week

Since it's midterms time for college students, I decided to find out what everyone thinks. Currently I have many friends who are stressed out and tired from studying for tests. I cannot necessarily relate because for the most part my midterms are writing papers. Personally, they both have their pros and cons. I feel that I retain information better when I have to write a paper because I am heavily involved in what I am writing about and I feel that I need to have mastered the information in order to make sense in my writing. As for test taking, I feel that I tend to memorize the information and once the test is done with I forget what I was supposed to have learned. However, I tend to score better on tests than on papers. So, I was just wondering....what do you think is the better way to evaluate learning? Taking tests or writing papers? I have to look into what research says but I thought it would be interesting to read what others think.