At the end of each semester, students take final exams for the majority of their academic classes.
These tests determine a percentage of a student’s grade in a class, and all of these tests are taken in the span of five days despite containing a semester’s worth of information.
The way finals are structured places an unreasonable expectation upon students, and can have detrimental consequences for students’ mental health, grades and overall wellbeing.
Having to study five months worth of information for every class that has a final, then take each test in a week is too much work to be placed on teenagers.
While learning materials in class, students already take tests assessing overall understanding on certain topics. These tests are taken one at a time and sometimes already include information on past units.
Students already have an understanding of materials because of this, so finals don’t need to be as in depth as they currently are.
During the regular semester, students are given adequate time to study information while it’s being taught, and don’t feel any unnecessary stress or uncertainty about tests.
Cramming for tests and lacking sleep are avoidable most of the school year with proper time management and prioritizing sleep and mental health.
But during and before finals week, most students feel pressure to throw their sleep schedules out of the window, as they have to study and memorize a semester’s worth of information for their classes.
Some may argue that finals do help prepare students for college, where exams can often determine more than half of a student’s grade. Finals may be necessary to help prepare students for their futures, but a more uniform and universal grading system for finals should be adopted.
Right now teachers can make a final worth any percentage of a student’s grade they want.
For example, a student could spend all semester studying for tests and assignments, just to get their GPA destroyed by a final that’s worth 30% of their grade.
On the other hand, a student can barely study the whole semester and it would not affect their GPA as it’s worth only 5% of their grade.
In order to reduce these inconsistencies and to prevent students from stressing out too much, finals for every class should be worth the same percentage and should not take more than the two hours allotted to complete.
Ten percent seems like a fair amount a final should be worth, as it is capable of changing a students grade, but overall it will not have a drastic difference. This provides students the same expectations for every class.
Students also won’t have to track how much each final is worth for each class, giving them one less thing to worry about.
These changes won’t completely change finals week, but it can help ease student’s feeling of uncertainty during this stressful time.
