As the school year draws to a close, high school students across the country prepare for what’s long been considered the ultimate assessment of their knowledge: final exams.
These high-stakes tests are designed to measure a student’s cumulative understanding of a subject, but do they truly reflect learning and intellectual growth?
With the positive feedback that followed the cancellation of midterms at Saint Stephen’s this year, many are wondering: Should we have midterms and finals, going forward? Are these exams a necessary, positive addition to a student’s learning?
“Students reported feeling much less stressed,” Upper School Director Mrs.Conn said, referring to this year’s midterm cancellations.. “It was a needed relief after all the stress from the hurricanes.”
As a student at Saint Stephen’s, final exams have been the death of me. They have caused me incredible amounts of stress, and the results have been not indicative of what I know and how I performed throughout the year.
Despite being an A- student throughout high school, I’ve struggled to pass my finals due to the unreasonable amount of work needed to review within just one week.
One issue is that final exams prioritize short-term memorization over any kind of deep, meaningful learning. The American Psychological Association (APA) found that students who cram for high-stakes exams often forget the material shortly afterward— so why take them, if it isn’t to promote deeper learning?
Perhaps it’s to establish endurance and grit, but can’t that be established in a class’s typical curriculum?
Senior Harrison Wright strongly believes final exams aren’t about learning— they’re about retaining information.
“Final exams simply test how well a person can retain info,”Wright said. “For my pre-calc final exam last year, I ended up memorizing a bunch of formulas and it did nothing for me, no actual learning was done and I performed quite poorly.”
Students would benefit more from project-based assessments, presentations, and cumulative coursework, which provide different skill building as well as accurate representations of student understanding.
This is, in a way, what we all experienced this winter, with no midterms.
“I would really like to see projects and presentations instead of finals,” Wright said.. “It would mean less work, less stress, and I’d actually want to learn the material.”
Given the significant weight of both interim assessments and final exams, it is crucial for students to understand how their performance throughout the semester impacts their overall grade.
At Saint Stephens final exams are 20% of our semester grade, with each interim weighing 40%. That is way too much weight for one assignment.
Think about it in terms of time: An interim lasts 2.5 months, final exams are 2 hours. Having one exam weigh as much as half an interim of demonstrating learning just doesn’t make sense.
“I hate final exams as they weigh too much,” Senior Graham Jaynes said. “I take them during a period where I am very burnt out… and I often feel sick before I take them as I know I can’t afford a bad grade.”
According to administration, midterms and finals proceed as usual for the foreseeable future, but admin isn’t ruling out a potential change in the coming years.
“Midterms will stay, as we need at least one evaluation exam in the year, but finals may be reconsidered,” said Conn
As education evolves, so too should the methods by which we evaluate student achievement. Final exams, in their current form, do more harm than good by prioritizing short-term memorization, inducing high levels of stress, and failing to accommodate different learning styles.
Schools should rethink their reliance on finals and embrace more effective, holistic approaches to assessment—ones that truly prepare students for success beyond the classroom.
