I do tend to slack off with assignments, but I do find them easier. It's nice in subjects like History, Psychology and English when you need a quote or a statistic or something and you're able to have the books at hand to use them to their best effect. Sometimes it's just not possible to learn everything you for an exam.

Having said that, I've always done pretty well with essay-based examinations. I got the top grades in the two subjects that were mainly assessed by essay examinations (History and Psychology). And as for English exams (only about 40% of the final grade), on the paper that required knowing the texts needed for the exam well, I got the top grade on that individual paper. Sadly an uncharacteristically poor first paper (critical commentary) took my English grade down some. But by and large I do well in either, but I prefer assignments if only because there's less of a sense of panic with them.