Head to Head: School Should Not Have Mid-Terms

Midterms have too much control over students’ grades and their state of mind. Midterms account for 20% of your final grade, which can be the difference between an A and a B, a B and a C. This is a huge drop, especially when considering college. Midterms are making a two hour test account for a lot, therefore, diminishing the hard work you put in during the semester. Midterms also cause an unhealthy amount of stress. Students are forced to cram in the whole semester in a couple nights of studying. This forces kids to go to bed at a ridiculous hour and it is very unhealthy for teens to be deprived of sleep. Thus, by not having midterms, students will keep the grades that they have worked hard for the whole  semester and not stress out.

An alternative would be to have finals at the end of the year, but instead of midterms there should be a more challenging test or a final project not worth a whopping 20% of our grade. Statistically, students grades drop when taking finals and midterms. This is why students should only take finals and not midterms. For example, if a student worked hard to get a 94 in the class and then they get a 90 on the midterm, their grade may drop a point or so. This is not fair since the final exams are designed to be much harder than a regular test. Ultimately, the school should keep finals because they recap the whole year, but get rid of midterms!

When I was asked if the Hebrew Academy High School should give midterm exams, I thought long and hard and concluded that these exams are a valuable tool for both students and teachers. One reason why I believe our school should continue to have mid-year and final exams, is because having these tests provides a final opportunity for the students to improve their grades before the end of the first semester. For most classes, the final grade is comprised of homework, tests, quizzes, class work, class participation, and the final or midterm exam. These exams are worth the most and can have the greatest impact on the students’ final grades. Another positive aspect of having midterm and final exams is that the midterm exams are an effective way for the teachers to see the progress of the students throughout the semester. The teachers can then adjust their curricula and plan for the next semester and future school years based on these grades. Similarly, students can use their grades on the midterm exams to gauge what they need to focus on going into the new semester. The students can evaluate the strong and weak aspects of their learning and improve upon their findings. One primary reason for high school is to prepare students for the rigors of college academia. End of semester exams are a key element used to grade students in most colleges nationwide. Without having these exams in high school, the concept of studying an entire semester’s worth of information will be foreign to the students and they will be at a disadvantage. Ultimately, while studying for midterm/final exams can be time consuming and tedious, they serve to maximize the goals of both students and teachers. These exams provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate their abilities and knowledge, and they enable teachers to evaluate both students and themselves.

By: Avi Stein (12th grade) and Noah Dobin (10th grade)