Summer is so close, yet so far. You will especially feel like this the last week of school since the eternity of the week is devoted to final exams. But why do we even have finals? The opinions of the world seem to be half and half when it comes to how they feel about these final assessments. Some say there shouldn’t be any tests while others say it’s necessary to have one final test to evaluate all of the learned knowledge from the past year.

     Finals can be scary and super demanding, but can be helpful to your learning. It gives you and the teachers a good idea of where you are before the next school year! “It might be stressful, even terrifying, but it has the singular power to force students to go back over material, think critically about what they have read, review hard-to-grasp-topics once more, and even talk about the subject matter with classmates and instructors — all of which enhance learning” (Thomas 1). And whenever you have finals there’s some sort of break afterwards, and you can decompress from all the testing. Plus it’s not like you’re learning anything new, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting the material. Then you come back refreshed and ready to go.

Overall having one last test to be able to see who is and isn’t understanding the material can be a positive. Though most kids nowadays have trouble concentrating and applying the material over an entire semester. To them finals are  “Students already have to take a number of standardized tests and AP exams that prove whether or not they know the material. Taking yet another test is unnecessarily redundant” (Fox 1). This article is one of the many that believe standardized testing is useless. Most students would rather have a mini assessment on certain topics instead of one big test. It makes it less stressful and easier to study for.

The only thing you can do is comply and follow your school’s rules. Whether you have testing or not, as long as you are a Wauconda student you better be preparing!