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Exam season

January 18, 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Avery Park

It’s that time of year for us students, the first exams of the year. Always stressful, and nobody ever feels prepared.

There has always been a stigma around exams, especially for Grade nines. Exams are something that nobody wants to do but everybody has to, and everyone always dreads them.

Some people do get lucky, and only have a 5-10 minute interview on exam day, but others have four days of 3 hour long exams that feel like forever.

Many Grade nines always feel the pressure of exams, and believe they will do horribly, I know I did. The thing to remember is that your teachers don’t want you to fail, they won’t give you extremely hard questions and if you study, you’ll be okay.

All through Grade 9 I was the student to do every question on every homework assignment, plus any extra ones. For hours every night I would study for something and I always kept myself busy with schoolwork.

In high school there are people like me, who take arts and language type courses, but there are also people who take all of the sciences and maths. Both students are doing equal amounts of work, just in different courses.

The math and science oriented students have to memorize formulas and facts to do well in their course, while the more artistic courses require creativity and out of the box thinking, so there are different ways to study for both of those.

Everyone needs to work hard to succeed on their exams, but everything will be different for everybody. All I can do is wish everyone good luck!

The one exam I have heard about many times is the Grade 12 university English exam, which I have this semester. Lucky me.

In three hours you have to complete three essays, and that’s your whole exam. I find it hilarious that during the school year my teachers give me over a week to properly write an essay, and say not to leave it to the last minute or it won’t be as good. Now I have to write an essay an hour, what quality are they expecting from these essays?

I won’t have time to think, because I will have to write the whole time just to get a decently sized essay. I find this exam ridiculous because teachers’ expectations throughout the semester are totally different.

Exams are an overly stressful test for teens to take, and cause unnecessary stress for us at the end of the year, because each class also has their end of the year assignment, which are due too.

I think that we need to find a new way to assess learning at the end of the year that doesn’t put so much pressure on one thing that is worth 30 percent of your final grade. Some teachers do split this 30 percent with a final assignment, but there are a lot that don’t. There is an added pressure with exams because of how much it affects your final grade.

There are a lot of students that don’t test well and cant write fast enough to finish an exam in a set amount of time, and that’s perfectly okay. Some students do get the extra time they need, but there are some that don’t.

Even though it may seem difficult and like too much work, I think each student should get the help they need, so everyone can do the best they possibly can. More teachers per classroom could significantly help with this, because one teacher in a class of 30 students does not sound that effective.

I know that as we grow older we need to learn how to become more independent, and when we go on to post-secondary there will most likely be a lot more students in our courses, but we need to be prepared enough in high school to take on the academic workload that will come.

The pressure we have to deal with to get that A on a test, or get the perfect score on that assignment is awful because not every student has been given the information they need to truly understand the subject.

I know that I do not learn by listening, I am more of a visual learner. Whenever a teacher just talks about a topic, if I don’t write down what they’re saying I will forget everything they’ve said within a few seconds. I need to see the words or I can’t process it.

Every student has their own way to learn, their own way to study for exams, and we should take into consideration all of these needs when we think about exams, or any final marks.

All things should be considered when it comes to our education.

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