LIZZY WARNER
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007

WHEN IT GETS toward this time of year students are filled with joy that the holiday season is approaching: no school, no homework, and we actually get to sleep in for once! But it never fails that this feeling of joy is overcome by an overwhelming feeling of stress. In essence, finals week.

I never understood the logic behind why teachers would put us through finals. For one thing nobody can focus. We get wrapped up in spending our weekends shopping for holiday gifts, helping our parents decorate the house, and moving all the winter stuff down from the attic.

Meanwhile we're also expected to study for a cumulative final, attempting to remember every single formula and vocabulary word we've learned in the last four months.

When we start prepping for the holiday season our minds switch gears and we're more focused on our upcoming weeks of relaxation than our classes. Do you really expect us to perform well when our minds are off frolicking through the snow?

And what I've understood of finals is that teachers want us to be able to prove that we know what we've been taught. So then why are we studying? If we know it, like we should, shouldn't we not need to study? Shouldn't we be able to ace the test without cracking a book, because we already "know" the information?

Teachers are fully aware that we immerse ourselves in intense studying just to be able to get a passing grade, and most teachers know that only one or two students actually remember the equation from our Unit 3 test. So what is this final really going to prove? That we're good at cramming? That we can throw up a bunch of information onto a 90-minute test?

I would bet that if you ask a typical student, the day after their final, a question requiring them to recall knowledge they used on the final, the answer wouldn't be half as decent as it would've the day they were taking the test. We are all guilty of it: We cram as much information we can into our heads and when it comes time for the test we spill it all out onto the paper. Do we actually retain the information? I doubt it, though it's hard to say because immediately after we've turned in one test we begin studying for our next one.

On top of that, teachers have to realize that we're taking tests for all our subjects. Even PE submits us to fitness testing. We're stressed, we're tired, we're anxious and in all honesty we're probably doing more than we can really handle.

True, the teachers have to grade the tests for all their students, but they can turn the tests back to us a day later or a week later, whichever is more suitable. And they have an answer key: If you know the answer is A and the student circled C, then it's wrong. Meanwhile, though, we're still stressing out, waiting to see if we've managed to pass or not, and it isn't until we actually get the finals back in our hands, graded, that it's all over.

Teachers have lives. They don't want to be grading a ton of papers over their break. Students have lives. We don't want to be staying up all night packing in information. So if the teachers don't want to grade and the students don't want to study, wouldn't it seem that the simple solution would be not to have a final at all?

I can see that some teachers feel we really need to know information for the next semester and feel that a final is necessary. But instead of a test where we have to memorize millions of bits of scattered information, I would suggest a paper or, better yet, a group project.

Group projects can focus on general important concepts while still integrating trivial knowledge and require you to exhibit a deeper understanding of the material given so as to present it well. At the same time it allows students to bounce ideas off each other, learn from each other, and take some of the weight off their shoulders so that they don't feel as overwhelmed and exhausted.

Papers require you to be able to interpret the information and word it, display it, and format it in a way that calls for you to really comprehend what you're writing about. Also, papers reinforce the material you already know and require you to do more in-depth research for the things you don't know so as to be able to explain it in a good manner.

Either way, the plain old "I pack in as much as I can, you give me the test, I spill, and I pass" routine is getting old and repeatedly stressful. There are simpler, better, nicer solutions that teachers should really open up to.