High School students deal with large amounts of stress when it comes to test and quiz taking. Students often learn the material just to pass the test, but have no recollection of it a few months later. There are many other ways to teach material and get students to remember it in more interesting ways, like hands-on projects. Hands-on learning and group projects grabs students’ attention more and increases their desire to learn. Having a test or quiz does not prove that students truly understand the material that was being taught, rather they just memorize it for the assessment.

Not every student shows their academic ability in the same way, which is another reason tests and quizzes might not show full understanding of the given topic. The majority students at Walpole High school (WHS) can agree that quizzes and tests add so much stress to their life.

“Quizzes and tests are extremely stressful,” says sophomore Anna Bingham. “On top of other activities, it’s hard to find time to study for so many different things.”

When you have multiple tests in one day, it can be difficult to retain the material for them all. By giving students projects, essays, or other ways to show their knowledge, it can reduce the stress levels they feel. Having projects that are stretched over a few days is more beneficial to learning than having one test where students have to remember everything. When there are multiple tests, students are memorizing more than learning and understanding the concepts. It’s stressful trying to remember many chapters of a lesson for one test that will have a high impact on your grade. By having more projects and essays worth less than tests, it would give students more chances to improve their grades in the course. 

Having too many tests in one week is not only disruptive to mental health but physical health. When there are multiple quizzes in a day or week, it affects students’ sleep schedules which also affects test taking ability.

“When studying for many tests during the week, I stay up way too late and then have to wake up early to get ready for school feeling tired and like I can’t perform as well as I could,” says sophomore Nick Riccobono.

When tired the next day and taking a test or quiz, it can be difficult for students to focus on what their supposed to be remembering. Although there are different study tactics, they are not going to matter if they are too tired to think straight. It is easy for teachers to tell students to “go to bed earlier”, but it is not that easy when there is  other homework, tests to study for and extracurriculars after school.

While some can argue that tests and quizzes are important, overall, they do more bad than good. It causes stress on students by affecting their sleep schedules and causing them to memorize a lot of information at once. There are many other ways for students to show their knowledge and more teachers should take advantage of the fact.