With finals week looming, some have wondered if students should be able to exempt some exams at the end of the year.
For freshmen and sophomores, a final exam is 15% of their overall grade, while juniors and seniors’ final exams are worth 20%.
With percentages that large, final exams have the ability to ruin the grade that was worked so hard for over the course of a semester.
“I think there should be some qualifiers, like if it’s a hard class, an exemption should be possible if a student has a grade of a 95 and above unweighted,” said Parker Durrance, history teacher.
Some believe Durrance’s thoughts on exams ring true.
“I think if you have above a certain grade you should be able to, like a 93,” said freshman Ella Dornan.
In all honesty exams can ruin grades. For a freshman, for example, if they have a 97 in class and get an 88 on an exam, their overall average would be a 94. However, if that same student gets a 95 on the exam, their overall average will be a 96. With these numbers, why does getting a good grade even matter?
Some teachers disagree all together and are in favor of keeping final exams as they are currently.
“It prepares students for college. There are some college courses where your only grade is your final exam. Learning in high school how to prepare for a cumulative exam will give students the edge over the ones that don’t know how to study,” said Kelsey Piefke, Upper School Spanish teacher.
Although it does prepare students for college exams, the fact that it is twice a year can be extremely stressful.
A few years ago, the exam policy was changed where teachers had the opportunity to give students either a normal final exam or a cumulative project to show that they had mastered the content, alleviating some of the stress of having five to six finals over a span of 3 days.
“I feel like in some classes I would rather have a project, and in some I would rather have an exam,” said Dornan.
Some believe that giving exams once a year before winter break is enough. At the end of the school year, all students can think about is being out for summer break and not about the impending exams.
Although the things that have been said about needing exams for college, Mount Pisgah students are burned out between playing sports, doing extra-curricular activities, maintaining jobs, all on top of studying for classes.
It begs the question – should students be able to exempt some final exams in the spring semester?
Upper School Principal Marie Woods and the administration team are in talks about a better way to do the overall final exam experience.
“Our team is working on it over the summer, looking into what’s the rule of exams, who do they benefit, who do they have the potential to hurt, and really are they still meaningful and necessary because if they are not, looking at a new way to do them that would be helpful,” said Woods.
