Do you remember what you had for dinner last Thursday? No, probably not. So, teachers expect us to remember what we learned over a span of 4 months and put it into one big test? In high school and college, those “big tests” are called finals. Students dread the week of finals because it causes stress and puts a bigger workload on us to study the material. 

Having finals in school always seems to affect students in a negative way because we tend to complain about being stressed or not wanting to study an excessive amount of material across those 4 months of class. We take in information and somehow have to keep it fresh in our brain so we can be tested on it at the end of the quarter or semester. Students have shown signs of worry or stress and a lot of times express it out loud to each other. Having these finals make us worry about the grade we are going to get and how well we will do while taking the test. Most kids stay up late hours to study and review information they already learned so it’s refreshed. Finals really do cause students to stress which is why we should have consistent tests instead of cramming all the work into a big test. 

Another reason why we shouldn’t have finals and have shorter tests is because it gives teachers more work to prepare the test and then to have to grade the tests. This could also stress out teachers because they have several classes finals to grade and is a lot of work put on them. Teachers also don’t seem to like building the test because it has to be perfect for students and prepared a certain way for us. Some students have different learning strategies and need to have their test build a specific way for them to understand and complete the test. If we had smaller tests that weren’t as long and were only over a course of one unit in class, it would be a lot easier for teachers to grade. 

A third reason why we should have tests and quizzes instead of finals is because it’s an unreasonable amount of work and information for us to be tested on when we don’t remember or don’t feel like we understand so we doubt ourselves. We learn a lot of material in one class and normally have 3-4 classes a semester, which quadruples the work we have to study for our finals. In general, it is a lot of work but when we have to put all that work into one place at a timed pace which also ties into stressing students out. This is just another reason why we should have quizzes and tests instead of a big final at the end of the semester. 

In conclusion, we should change our ways of testing because finals cause more stress for both students and teachers and it would be a lot easier to take out finals and substitute them with regular and frequent tests. Finals just put more weight on everyone and if we take out finals, we may start to enjoy school a little bit more.