OPINION

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By Ian Quindoza

Midterm and final exams are quite possibly the most dreadful part of the high school experience. At the end of each semester, students are expected to study all of the material learned throughout the course in preparation for an exam that tests how well they learned the curriculum of the class. For years, this has been the most mainstream way of testing students’ knowledge of each subject. 

However, more recently there has been some debate as to how effectively a traditional exam is actually testing a student’s complete understanding of a subject. More teachers are finding value in assessments such as final projects, where the students must apply their knowledge and understanding, rather than just memorize facts. This year especially, the traditional exam has taken a large hit. With the coronavirus having such an impact on the typical high school learning experience, teachers are forced to come up with alternative ways to test their students before the end of the semester. 

Many Richmond-area schools have decided to not have exams for this first semester. Among the Collegiate student body, there was talk as to why we did not follow suit. Students seriously questioned the value of the traditional exam and, of course, some wished that they had been cancelled.  

As a student, I am very much like most of my peers. I don’t like exams. Obviously, the stress and loads of studying that comes along with them does not appeal to me or most high school students. However, I feel that there are further and much more valid reasons as to why schools should be considering alternative ways to test their students at the end of each semester. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the structure of this semester’s exams, I think in the future, the traditional exam structure should be changed. 

Some classes yield much easier alternatives to a two or three-hour written exam than others. With the exception of English 9, most English courses at Collegiate have a final paper or final project of some sort. In certain classes, it is much more difficult to come up with an alternative way to test students’ complete knowledge. Teachers of math classes like geometry or pre-calculus might have more trouble creating a final project than they would creating an exam, which is made up of problems similar to the ones given to the students all semester. 

I don’t necessarily believe that all written exams should be banished; I just think they need to be reworked. In classes that aren’t able to change to a project or other alternative exam, teachers need to write the exams so that students benefit from a deep understanding, rather than just being able to memorize facts or formulas. Questions should require more thoughtful answers that may not always have one specific correct answer. In real-world situations, you are much more likely to face problems that require deep thinking and understanding. 

In an article titled, “Will COVID-19 spell the end for exams?” on the World Economic Forum, author Conrad Hughes writes about, “educational reform.” In his argument on how education and specifically exams need to be reformed, he claims, “Few rituals in education are as old-fashioned and out of kilter with the way the world works today as examinations.”

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Exams are one of the most stressful parts of the school year for most students. There is an extreme amount of studying done in a very short period of time, which I don’t believe leaves the most lasting impact on a student’s knowledge and enjoyment of a subject. If a student is able to conduct a long-term project which they can build upon as they learn more in a class, they will feel more connected to what they are learning. I personally tend to not remember much of past courses after I have completed the exam. For many students, that experience is mutual. Jordan Leibowitz (‘19) says, “Exams are a stressful time overall, where memorizing is prioritized over the actual learning.” I don’t think that doing well on an exam should be the ultimate goal in a class. Benefitting in the long term from what you learned in a class is much more valuable than an outstanding exam grade.

Students spend hours studying, reviewing, and stressing just to get an acceptable grade on their final. But how important even is a good exam grade? In many high school cases, not that important. Our exam grades at Collegiate have typically been worth 20-25 percent of our grade in the class, although that ratio was adjusted this fall due to the pandemic. For a student to make any significant improvement to their overall grade, they most likely will have to score extremely high on the exam. For example, for a student with an 88/B+ average trying to get to a 90/A- overall grade, they would have to score around 98 percent on the exam. Otherwise, they will stay in the B+ range. Conversely, if a student has an 89, and is willing to let their grade drop two points to get by with their B+, all they need to do is score a 79 percent on the exam.

This is the case in high school; however, for college students the situation might be different. My sister Anne-Claire Quindoza (‘19), a sophomore at the University of South Carolina, says she “studies just as hard for an exam as you would in high school,” but feels that her studying, “pays off more, because it is worth more.” She says that she is more motivated to study hard for an exam when it has a higher impact on your grade. 

M.K. Myers (‘23) says that exams, “shouldn’t base the success of your semester off of one assessment.” Some people have argued that without exams this semester, the senior class would have arrived at college two years removed from the last time they took a formal exam. However, when asked if she were in the seniors’ position, would she feel unprepared to take exams in college, Quindoza says, “No… a lot of college exams are final projects.” 

There are many different opinions out there about the effectiveness and general worthiness of high school exams. Just within the student body of Collegiate, there are multiple different reasons why students feel the current state of final exams is not perfect. Exams in the future need to approached differently.