At the end of the long and tiresome first semester here at Walpole High, all students are required to take up to 7 exams, testing them on everything that they have learned thus fur. It is not too much material – only 630 hours of class time on top of the 2-3 hours of homework students have each night. It becomes stressful when the time comes to go back and review all of the material, and students often become irritated with the system in place. Even if students have proved that they know what they have been taught by diligently studying and doing well on the tests and quizzes, everyone is forced to review an overwhelming and unnecessary amount of material. Moreover, midyear exams unnecessarily judge the academic progress of a student, and inadequately reflect their true abilities.
One of the classic defenses used for midyears and finals is that they prepare students for the large assessments they will likely see in their future, such as the SATs and college exams. According to this logic, students without proper test preparation will be completely clueless when they are faced with one of these tests. However, many teachers already give students tests and quizzes to wrap up the chapter or lesson they want to finish before break. During these weeks, many students find themselves with five or six assessments standing between them and their vacation. Saying that stress and large scale exams would be foreign to a graduating high school student who has never taken exams is simply not true.
A step towards change has taken place in Walpole High School this year, a change that could act as a catalyst to end midyear exams in the future. Students are no longer required to take English exams—the justification being that the material creates an “inadequate assessment” of the students skills. School can be an incredibly stressful environment on students with not only heavy academic pressures, but also heavy social pressures put on them every day. Senior Tom Donnellan, the Rebel’s starting quarterback and varsity basketball captain, is one of the many students with an incredible amount of responsibilities. “It seems like I have at least one test or quiz everyday, so it seems a little unnecessary to give us these cumulative exams half way through the year,” he said. “I think if our grades are decent, we shouldn’t have to take them.”
While most colleges do administer midyear exams, some of the top high schools in Massachusetts have chosen to forgo these tests. Schools, such as Wellesley and Westwood High, find themselves 11th and 14th ranked public high schools in the state, respectively, and their programs do not include administering midyear exams. The students of these schools regularly average higher scores on the SATs and a higher graduation percentage than Walpole. One argument to how WHS could climb the ranks and reach a status similar to these neighboring schools is to make some changes to its current exam system.
Perhaps an alternative to the current program could be students not having to take exams if their grades are at a certain level. This policy would be similar to the one currently in place for seniors, where if they maintain a 75 semester average with at least an 80 for the term four grade, they are exempt from a final exam. High grades would prove that students have grasped the concepts they have been taught, and that they no longer need to be tested on them. If this were a school-wide policy for exams, students may find themselves more apt to study during the year in order to keep their grades up.
