During the busiest week of the school year, tensions rise high for students and teachers alike. However, the question of whether this added pressure is really beneficial or not is heavy on some students’ minds. 

To begin with, using one grade to be the determinant of an entire semester of learning may be a form of sabotage, especially for hardworking students with anxiety when it comes to test taking. According to studies from UCLA University, Test Anxiety is a real thing that affects 40-60% of students ranging from youth to adulthood, and can greatly affect test performance.

A student might do perfectly fine the entire school year, but with the overwhelming pressure of finals, perform mildly in comparison to their usual level of performance.

On the other hand, it is hard to expect students to perfectly remember everything they have learned over the course of around five months. Long term memory works differently for everybody, and can last anywhere from a day, a week, or a lifetime. It is unfair to expect every student’s brain to operate the same way as the next, and memorization just may not come as easily to them. 

Normally, a final exam is about 20% of a student’s grade, which if performed badly, can drastically drop your grade. I believe that at the very least, the percentage should be dropped to around 10% due to the various reasons previously mentioned. In the end, it seems that finals are more likely to hurt a student than to help.