Finals help prepare students for their future
Aidan Primeau studies for finals. He has his laptop and phone charging because he has been using them for so long. However, this will help him become more prepared for finals.
February 22, 2023
While finals week can be very hard on students, they have an important impact which students can only see in the long run.
Some classes are wandering away from finals, but these types of tests are a wonderful way to prepare a student for college or whatever they do after high school.
“They do better prepare people for college because in college you have a lot of exams, and unfortunately your success in college is largely predicated on large tests,” junior Cole Handberg said.
Since there are a lot of exams in college, preparing for tests now is a way for students to find good habits to make it easier to be prepared for big tests.
Math teacher Pete Hamilton, who teaches Algebra 3 at the high school, explained, “It starts to prepare kids for life in the next level.”
Junior Lucas Hintze said if one wants a good grade on a final they need to study a lot, which comes with a lot of extra work and a lot of extra time. This puts more pressure on a body which causes stress.
“They kind of suck because they are very stressful,” Hintze said.
Even though they can be tough, the stress from working really hard can improve memory and performance. This will help with more tests and activities in the future.
Hamilton added, “We need to teach kids how to manage stress and deal with it.” This will not only help in school, but in everyday life.
It starts to prepare kids for life in the next level.
— Mr. Hamilton
When finals week comes around, it is easy to forget something that you learned at the beginning of the year.
“It’s a good way of showing comprehension… but I don’t think its the best way of showing progress because there are too many unnecessary factors that can get in the way of showing what you know, like stress or forgetting it or too much information over a period of time,” Handberg added.
Revisiting information and refreshing a student’s memory of a topic they have already learned is the most efficient way to seal the information in their head. On the other hand, since finals are tests that cover the whole semester, it is easy to forget information you learned in the beginning.
If there was an easier way teachers could test the comprehension of students, they would.
Handberg said, “Finals aren’t the best for all students because it all depends on your test taking ability.”
One who is not a good test taker will struggle with finals, while one who is a good test taker will excel. This is one reason why teachers have either made finals easier or have not done them at all.
The final grade at the end of the year can come down to one final. Even if students have worked hard the whole semester and turned in all the work, the final could mess up a students grade. Another reason some may think finals are bad is because the amount of stress can have affects on the body and mental health. The amount of stress finals week and the weeks prior cause, can make it the worst week of the year.
