Geography teachers' school-based (internal) examinations in pre-vocational geography education in the Netherlands appear to be in line with the findings in the literature, namely that teachers' assessment practices tend to focus on the recall of knowledge. These practices are strongly influenced by national (external) examinations. This paper provides empirical evidence about the impact of the national examinations on internal assessment practices. An analysis of test items in national examinations from 2015, 2016 and 2017 shows that the majority of these items focus on remembering and are in a format that can be marked reliably. Teachers' tendency to copy these formats in their school-based assessment raises questions regarding validity. This paper explores these concerns and contributes to the discussion on effective assessment in secondary school contexts.