Move Second Semester Finals
One Week Earlier
It’s the last week of school, and all Miramonte students can
think about is their upcoming summer: summer plans, sleeping
in and stress-free days. Even though students are waiting in
anticipation for summer, they need to focus on the final days
of the school year because they need to study for second
semester finals. This school-wide distraction can affect how
students do on these extremely important tests, and therefore,
spring finals should not take place during the last week of
school.
Spring finals are possibly the most important set of tests a
student takes all year because they can determine one’s final
grade, so Miramonte students need to be very focused when
studying for them, which is a challenge with summer just
around the corner.
Many students miss the last few days of school to go on summer
trips or for sports, making it hard for them and their
teachers to arrange a time during school beforehand to take
the test. This is hard to do because the two hours allowed to
take the final would take away from the final class periods
before testing in not just one, but multiple class periods.
“I am missing finals because my crew team is traveling for
national championships. I am going to be missing Thursday and
Friday finals, when I have 4 important classes. It is
inconvenient for me because I have to cram my studying and
test taking into the two days before I leave instead of four
which will be really stressful and a lot of tests in a small
time period,” sophomore Liz Hofinga said.
If a student is sick during the last week of school, they need
to make up their final during the first week of summer which
may interfere with commitments for the student. There are no
more school days after finals, so Miramonte students don’t get
the chance to make the test up during school if they are
unexpectedly absent. Therefore, the student must take the time
out of their busy summer schedule to take the test.
Also, after finals, teachers are pushed to get all their tests
graded before final grades are due. Moving finals a week
earlier would give teachers more time to grade final exams,
input semester grades, and finalize scores before they are
due.
Making finals the second to last week of school also gives
students the chance to ask their teachers any questions they
have about the final, or their grade in the class. This
ensures that the grades are accurately imputed and students
have the chance to get their completed worksheets returned
before the end of the school year.
The last day of class is the day you take your final, so
students don’t get a chance to look at the test afterwards to
see what they got wrong. This doesn’t benefit the students
because they don’t know what questions they missed and can’t
learn from their mistakes on this important test.
The whole point of taking finals is to learn and review
everything from that class, but it is ineffective when
students don’t know what information they are getting wrong or
don’t know.
Many teachers and even some students argue that if finals took
place on the second to last week of school, the final week
would be pointless and not beneficial to students. What they
may not realize is the last week of school could be spent
going over the final test and discussing questions that many
students missed. This would also give students a chance to say
goodbye to their teachers and fellow students in a less
stressed and competitive environment.
Spring finals should be the second to last week of school,
because without all the distractions, students may on average
do better on their finals than if they were the last week of
school.