Are Final Exams Really Necessary?

Final exams are a part of every high schooler’s life. It is quite possibly the most stressful periods of our lives. Final exams test you on what you have learned from August to December in every subject. They can bring your grades up if you do well, but can potentially damage your GPA if you don’t. This year, final exams fall on December 11th. But, have you ever wondered, are final exams really necessary?

Senior Tiffany C. said, “Final exams test us on things we learn over the semester and the school year as a whole but doesn’t exactly reflect on our learning ability. Some students can do worse under pressure.”

Junior Antonette L. said, “I don’t think it is necessary to have final exams because we take summative tests almost every week on new units. This can show teachers where you are. The point of finals is a chance to see if you really understand the concept and teachers can change your grade of your summative tests if you do well.”

Junior Regina K. said, “Finals can change your grade, but it doesn’t exactly pull your grades up. The point of it is to see what you have learned from August to December. Most people perform quite well on one unit individually, but it might be hard to remember things that they learned previously all together at once. It is much easier to cram one unit than every unit all at once.”

Mr. Tragert, the vice-principal of high school, shared his opinion on finals, saying, “Finals are grueling, tiresome, stressful… but absolutely necessary. Being able to recall information from a few days ago for a unit on a summative assessment is important. Developing strategies to learn information, store it into your long-term memory, and then recalling that information is another vital skill that students must learn. While “real-life” doesn’t often include giant tests at the many months of work, adults are asked all the time to put long-term action plans in place in order to complete big projects or large assignments. In some respects, guiding students through a semester of learning and culminating that learning with a comprehensive exam is a great method to teach this skill.”

What if we introduced a new concept where if you have a straight As in a subject, you would not have to take the final for it?

Antonette and Regina both agreed that if you have As in that subject, you should be able to skip the final for that subject. “Why would you bother if you aced that unit?”, they said.

Personally, as a freshman who has not taken her finals yet, I think that they are not necessary. Most students stress out a lot before tests and usually forget everything right after that test. They use a method called cramming where they memorize things for a short period of time and don’t understand the actual concept. Therefore, finals are basically useless as they do not really test us on everything we learn.

Mr. Tragert added that he wants to find ways to minimise our stress and workload in days and weeks leading up to exams and that if any students had any ideas, they should talk to him about it. He said, “While exams are very useful and absolutely necessary, AISG can certainly find ways to make the process a more beneficial and less stressful tool for students.”

What are your opinions on final exams? Do you think they are necessary?