One of the biggest questions that goes around school is whether or not we should have midterms and finals. This question has been brought up various times because students are already being tested on material on a monthly, or even weekly basis, seeing that we get thrown with tests, quizzes, pop quizzes, CFA’s, and performance tasks, in which in the end, what worries students the most are their grades. 

I decided to go around the school to interview students about their opinion on midterms and finals and whether or not they should be kept, and the majority of students were sided on getting rid of midterms and finals. Senior, Disha Verma, believes that midterms and finals, “causes stress because teachers pile up work days before the test, and are frantically trying to make sure all the material is learned by a certain day.” Similarly to the SAT or ACT tests, midterms and finals are just one big test that examines your knowledge on topics that have been covered since the beginning of the school year. 

Another senior, Van Anh Tran, has shown mixed feelings about the concept of midterms and finals. She thinks that with tests such as these coming up, “there should be more review sessions and preparations for the test when it is about to come up.” Tran says that these tests are necessary, but necessary for, “in college you do have finals and these are good practice for the college level.” In the long run, “teachers should be better prepared getting students prepared, like giving materials to students over break.” Tran expands on the idea telling how seeing that seniors need to get scholarships and colleges finalized, teachers should try to give the review material before winter break so that students have a chance to start studying over break if given time to. 

Lastly, Jake Violette argues that midterms and finals are, “a good benchmark check, but for classes based on opinion, such as an English class, it isn’t the best. If a class is based on a hard factual class, [he] feels like it is a better valuation.” Violette goes on to support his claim that with courses like math, midterms are a good idea because in math, you can only get one answer, but with classes that involve opinions and a free response answer, such as English, or perhaps even art, the answers can vary and depends, based on your viewpoint on the topic. 

As you can see, midterms and finals do have its pros, but in the long run, make students more stressed, worried, and creates an overall feeling of needing to do well. With this in mind, students are only worried about their grades and how well they do, instead of enjoying the course and learning because they want to.