Have you ever felt bombarded with tests right when the end of the year rolls around? The feeling of having so much to prepare and study for overwhelms you so much that you just end up staring at a wall and doing nothing because of overwhelming stress. With finals coming up and the end of the marking period, teachers are bound to squeeze in as many tests and assignments as possible. Students hate this and feel frustrated because school is supposed to be coming to an end, but instead the work load keeps increasing and stress doubles.
With exams around the corner, one may think that teachers would go easy on the work and allow their students to make time to study, yet they do the complete opposite. In fact, last year multiple students reported having up to five tests in one day the week before finals. This absurd amount of assessments the week before exams shouldn’t be allowed and classes should be filled with reviews, not tests.
In a Wessex Wire poll of 138 students, 92 percent felt that limiting the workload would be somewhat or very beneficial. When summatives and finals are both squeezed into the last few weeks, students are burnt out and have a harder time trying to put their best effort forward. Around 75 percent of those students also felt that their ability to study well for final exams is largely impacted by having multiple tests so close to their exams.
With finals being 10 percent of your average grade, students would need to do their best, yet many are limited by having to study for normal tests the entire week before finals. This setup isn’t beneficial to anyone as around 77 percent of students report getting overly stressed out when they have to worry about multiple tests crammed into the week before exams.
This unfortunate situation leaves only 5 percent of the student body unaffected, causing the test scores for the vast majority to be significantly impacted. This poll clearly shows that having multiple tests the week before finals is not beneficial to numerous students and provides no purpose other than to stress the kids out.
Having a large number of tests toward the end of a marking period is normal, but the week before finals shouldn’t be an option for teachers. Not only does having five tests in one day overwhelm the students, but it also doesn’t give them enough time to study.
“I suggest students speak to their teachers to alert them of this conflict,” Principal Dr. Kimberly Westervelt said. “I will also continue to work with the teachers to resolve this issue… Students should also know that our staff is flexible, should there be any concerns. Students can speak directly to their teachers to manage their testing conflicts.”
Students often feel that when they have multiple tests in one day, usually they’ll prioritize one to three tests that they feel are the most important to them and forget about the rest. This method doesn’t help the students or the teachers because it doesn’t allow students to show their teachers their full capability if they can’t make enough time to fit all of that studying in one or two nights.
Everyone knows students may be given more than two days to prepare for a test, but in reality no one is actually studying until the night before. Some kids won’t even review the subject until the day of. This unfortunate studying method doesn’t help the case but even with more efficient methods to prepare for exams, students still get anxious. Having to remember a large amount of information for five different subjects is way too much to ask high schoolers. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to get through school and make our way into summer. Teachers squeezing several tests into the week before finals benefits nobody and needs to be stopped.
