I grew up in the UK. When I started working full time, I had three academic things on my CV:

- 11 GCSE grades

- 4 A level grades

- 1 University degree

For virtually all of these, the grades/results were determined by exams taken at the end of a period of study:

- GCSE exams taken at ~16yo

- A level exams taken at ~18yo

- University finals taken at ~21yo

At the time, I thought it was very very strange that my GCSE grades for English Language and English Literature were not based on exams, but on a bunch of essays I had written over a two year period.

It seemed strange because those past essays did not measure my current capability, but something else.

But this (measuring students on performance over multiple years) is the norm here in the US. Sure, many students take the SAT or ACT or various AP exams. But many students enter university with their academic performance measured on their high school GPA, which seemingly doesn't even attempt to measure mastery.