With the beginning of December upon us, there’s a large event running through all students’ heads: finals week. Many people believe finals week is a nuisance, as it is just an overview of all the topics that they’ve already learned. For four days, we go over the units we learned the past two quarters and have a large test that can make or break our grade. Now, are they really helpful to students to help them jog their memory, or do they just cause anxiety and stress?

Finals are meant to simulate tests in college. It is more common that when a student is in elementary school or middle school that they have multiple quizzes or small tests per week that do not have as large of an impact on their grade individually. However, as students get older, it is more common for them to experience having fewer and fewer tests. In college, one may only have a midterm and a final each semester. With that being said, these tests carry much greater weight when it comes to a student’s final grades. Therefore, students in high school should take the opportunity of having finals to practice studying and preparing for larger exams.

Students’ overall quarter and semester grades rely a lot on how they do on their final exams and can also determine if that student passes the class for that semester. That can put a lot of pressure on people who have test anxiety and aren’t doing well in class. This much pressure can cause a student to cram this information and also puts strain on their physical and mental health. At CHS, students can either pass the final and one quarter or both quarters and not the final. But if a student fails them all, with a grade of below a D on any of them, he or she will fail the class for that semester. If a student does fail a semester of a class, they would have to take the class again or enroll in credit recovery, which could also cause them to fall behind in class.

While finals stress out students, they may also stress teachers. When finals close in upon the staff, they realize how much they have left to teach for that semester. Finals cover all the old data that the students have learned instead of teaching them new information. The last few class periods are spent doing reviews and focusing on material that has already been reviewed and learned instead of using that time to learn valuable material. Finals cause the teachers to cut the curriculum short or cram large amounts of information in a short period of time where the students wouldn’t be able to comprehend it fully. 

How do you feel? Should finals be eliminated, or should they continue being used? Are finals fair testing or is there something else the school could be doing?