Niles West students start their semester finals tomorrow; however, instead of preparing for their final exams the week prior, many spent time studying for a heavy unit test the week before finals. Some teachers make the decision to fit in one final unit test, giving only a handful of days to review a whole semester’s worth of information that will be on their final exam.

Finals are one of the most important parts of a student’s semester. A final exam could be worth up to 20 percent of your final semester grade, so it could potentially be the most important assessment of the semester. We stress and prepare for weeks to attain a good score that determines our final grade.

However, when adding one more unit test before the week of finals only adds extra and unnecessary stress on our plates. Instead of students preparing for one final for a class, they must study for both a unit test and a final within a two-week period on top of all their other classes. Finals week is already seen as a stressful week for students, and the pressure to fit one more test in their schedule is unnecessary.

For example, many math classes finish up their final unit the week right before finals. Calculus AB, specifically, just finished learning a unit last Wednesday. The test on the unit has two parts, with one on the Friday before finals,  and one on Monday, the week of finals. This only gives students a handful of days because finals for semester one takes place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to prepare and revisit a whole semester’s worth of math before their final exam.

On top of that, we have to balance other classes that do the same thing. For example many NWN staff members last week were given a unit test for their Spanish, Anatomy, Algebra 2, Physics, U.S. History and Pre-Calculus classes. Again, these tests were given the week before finals and they do not constitute part of the final; it is a whole separate test grade from the previous unit.

Possible Solutions:

• One solution our staff came up with is to space out the semester well enough for teachers to give students at least a week to prepare for finals, with no tests in between. This would give students at least a week to prepare for their final. Giving them enough time to review a whole semester worth of knowledge; instead of stressing about studying for one final test on top of studying for finals.

• Another solution is to make the last final unit test to be an alternative for the final. Instead of handing out a final exam with everything of the semester, if teachers are faced with little to no time to finish the Unit exam before finals, like Calculus AB, they could count the unit exam as the final exam.

• One other solution we came up with is to make the final unit exam worth less than an actual test grade. If teachers made the final test be worth less in the grade book it would make less of an impact on the students grade. This would decrease the stress level because a test, in the grade book, is weighted much more than a quiz.

Overall the Niles West News staff believes that handing out tests the week before the final exam is not a satisfactory feat students should have to do. Finals is a stressful time of year, adding one more test on top of students plates causes students to burn out. If teachers want to help their students as much as possible we think giving their students more time to study for their overall final exam, rather than a unit test, is the best support.