By Jennifer Trend & Ella Scott-Wallace, Staff Writers
Finals are quickly approaching, but the final tests end up either during finals week or the week before. When would it be best for finals to be taken?
Keeping finals on the last week of school would cause less stress for the student, and would be a nice close to the year instead of taking a final and proceeding to fill up the next few days or weeks with classes that may not seem beneficial to the student’s education. Students may feel less motivated to finish the class because they may think everything after the finals are unimportant as they weren’t taught or done before finals.
Sometimes the student can end up having a few finals before the end of the school year, while the rest are at the end of the school year. This only creates more pressure and stress, as while one or a few classes are studying for finals, the rest of the student’s classes are proceeding as normal, perhaps finishing up an end of the year project that’s been assigned.
Usually time flies by when one takes a final, and the two hours seem much shorter, but sitting around during those two hours doing nothing or perhaps studying for another final may create a nervousness in the student for the next final.
If taken all at once, while it may be stressful for the student, it’s all over at once. It’s easier to get into a habit of studying and then taking the final instead of having a final one week and the rest a week later.
The subject of having finals before the last day of school brings the students in the area of relieving some of their stress.
Having finals on the last week of school creates unwanted stress for students who have already worked hard the entire year. In what should be a week of relaxing and wrapping up a school year, students are stressing and cramming for an exam on everything they’ve learned that semester.
Finals usually don’t dramatically change a student’s overall grade. Typically, if a students receives a high score on one of their exams, their grade in the class doesn’t change enough for it to affect their letter grade. However, if a student fails their final or is borderline, the exam they take could leave an impact on their grade.
Having finals a week—or at least a few days—before the last day of school might help students know their final mark in the class faster. For example, if finals grades are inputted around the last day of school, students who may have had a borderline grade in a class will immediately know what their letter grade is, rather than stressing about it during the first week of summer.
If finals were taken before the very end of the school year, they would still all be taken at once. Therefore, students would still be able to concentrate on studying while getting their exams out of the way, and could use the last days to reminisce and say goodbye to any friends or classmates they won’t be able to see over summer break.
Though both sides respectively have their pros and cons, it’s evident to see that having finals before the last school isn’t necessarily a bad idea, and would have some benefits for students.
