It’s almost exam week, and mostly everyone is stressed about final grades, GPA’s and credits, but, if a student already has a 93% or higher, it shouldn’t be necessary that they take the exam.

Students have to take the exams here, regardless of how high a grade in a class may be, but what is the benefit when a high grade is already exemplary that a student has payed attention and understands the criteria they’ve been taught?

A 2006 Center on Education Policy report stated teaching a curriculum aligned to state standards and using test data as feedback resulted in higher scores than actually practicing test-taking skills. Which means that it is proven tests are only done well not because students want to learn, but because they need higher scores in order to look good.

So, if students aren’t even motivated to take tests for an increase in their education, but rather for a high grade, then passing the class with a high grade should be good enough instead of making them take an exam as well.

Another reason for this is that students with high grades are going to do well on the exam, and students with low grades are going to do bad- some Canadian schools have exempted their final exam and midterm policies because it is agreed they are extraneous.

Some may argue that exams are a good review of what has been learned over a semester. If a teacher or board member really needs to know how well a student has learned, then they should assign a review guide or essay that needs to be done in order to show how much one has been educated.

If schools around the world are cutting out exams because they are overall irrelevant and unhealthy, then so should our school, exams are a bad time for everyone and are not a depiction of someone’s success in a class.