In high school, there are a couple of things that could cause someone to break into a cold sweat and start to panic. It might be that glimpse of remembrance right before going to bed that you had homework to complete, or if you’re anything like me it could be the idea of having to present something in front of your classmates. I can safely say that most, if not all, high-schoolers have had to deal with the panic and imminent stress of preparing for finals.

Being a senior, I’ve gone through the stress of taking finals for the past three years, but despite this my palms start to sweat at the mere thought of taking hour-and-a-half-long finals on topics that my brain has already begun to forget. It’s not that I’ve lost confidence in being able to pass my finals, but somehow I begin to imagine that, in a crazy turn of events, I’ll forget every single thing I’ve learned this past semester once it comes to filling in the bubbles on my CRT for any given class. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but variations of this ludicrous thought have found their way into my brain every time finals come around.

I’m also not keen on the idea of taking finals that won’t be administered by my own teachers. Last year, I had a teacher who often made errors on tests and wouldn’t notice until a student brought it to attention. I’m afraid that this year, there will be minute errors on my finals and I won’t be able to ask my teachers for clarification because they will be off proctoring an exam for physics or German. I’m used to dealing with unfavorable changes, but I feel uncomfortable taking tests when I know I can’t ask my teacher for help.

It doesn’t help that some departments change the weight of finals. While English may count towards 16% of a person’s grade, Social Studies may be 20%. I do not mind having finals that are weighted differently, but not all people are good at all subjects. In my case, I tend to do better at English than at Science or History, and because of that I’ve had disproportionate grades after the finals, where one grade will not have changed and another will have decreased tremendously. In all honesty, it stinks when you’re good at a certain subject but the final is weighted at the bare minimum so there’s no chance that it will even make an impact on your semester grade. Likewise, it’s not fun to take a final on a subject that you were never actually any good at, and it has the highest possible weight, because in most situations your grade will most likely drop a few points.Weighted finals does not seem equally fair to all students taking the tests.

Another thing I tend to worry about during finals week is the fact that colleges can see how well (or poorly) I do on my tests. Even as a freshman, I was terrified of doing horribly on my finals because in the back of my mind I knew that colleges were going to be looking at my grades eventually. The last thing I wanted was to have the director of admissions from my top-choice college clucking his tongue at my dismal grades. This year especially, I’ve felt the pressure to perform to the best of my abilities on my finals so that I can show colleges that I’m worth getting an acceptance letter.

I’ll admit that I haven’t studied as much as I should have these past few weeks, and I know that it will undoubtedly lower the possibility of scoring highly on my finals. I guess that my senioritis is kicking in a bit, and with all the stress of college applications and hoping to get into top-choice colleges, I’ve taken a break from studying for the most important tests of my senior year. If I don’t do as well as I hope to do on my finals, I have only myself to blame. Responsibility plays a huge factor in taking tests, especially when the tests only come around twice a year and are worth a larger portion of your grade than any other test. It might be difficult to take the time to study for your written exam in French–I know that the last thing you want to do is spend the better part of your winter break and weekends studying for finals– but that extra hour of review each night can be the difference between scoring well and scoring poorly on your tests. The grades you get will follow you up to your graduation, and having to look at a row of C’s in your ILP is not very amusing. Take it from someone who has had to repeat a class; it is better to stress yourself a little by studying when it results in a good grade than being nonchalant during testing and having to take summer school. Stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for how you do on your finals is the first step towards getting good grades.