There are clear advantages to quantification. Numbers allow us to provide exact descriptions of student performance and to compare one student to another more easily. They also can spur us to be explicit in our specifications for scoring student responses, thus leading to greater objectivity. On the other hand, quantifying student performance can work against the teacher or tester, perhaps masking nuances of performance or giving an air of certainty when scoring rubrics may actually be quite vague. Verbal or qualitative descriptions may offer an opportunity for a teacher to individualize feedback to a student, such as in marginal comments on a student's written work or oral feedback on pronunciation.