Keep finals before break

by: Molly James

While the excitement of winter break looms over the school, so does the dreaded week of finals. Finals bring it out of people. Some immediately grab their calculators to figure out the lowest grade they can receive on the final to receive an A in the class, while others put off studying until the last minute, wishing they could just take their finals after winter break; however, students who argue for making finals after winter break don’t understand the problems they’d be creating for themselves.

It’s a fact; finals cause a lot of stress. Some classes require students to study material they learned from the whole semester; other classes just require a unit test. Regardless, time still needs to be put into studying. While yes, having finals after winter break would provide students with more time to study, is this something students would really take advantage of? 

The holiday season is full of traveling, busy schedules, and spending time with family. Not to mention, winter break is a time to relax and have time away from school. Fitting in chunks of time to study would be another dreaded task for students to accomplish in their already busy break. Even if students aren’t busy, they should still be given a break from school. The two-week break in the middle of the year is the perfect time to offer students a fresh start and benefit their mental health. All this would be thrown out the window if students had seven classes of material to learn over their precious break. 

Just think of all the times teachers have scheduled tests on a Monday. Students always dread a Monday test day. They fear they will forget the material or not have enough time to study. This is just a two-day break. If finals were to be after winter break, this would mean we would have two weeks off. Students would then be forced to come back to school and perform well on an assessment that makes up a large portion of their grade. 

Now, recall what you learned in science class two weeks ago. If you even can remember what you learned, imagine not practicing that skill for two weeks, not getting feedback from your teacher, and then being forced into a test that makes up a large portion of your grade. Sounds awful, right? 

Additionally, if we were to take finals after winter break, the scheduling system would be all messed up. With the current system, semester one ends when break begins, and semester two starts when break ends. All students receive their new schedules at the end of break and follow that schedule when they return to school. This is the perfect time to reset the schedules. If the system changed, it would mean we would go to our old classes for one week and then switch classes and sometimes teachers. That just wouldn’t make sense. 

To go along with that, if semester one went past winter break, this would mean grades wouldn’t be finalized until much later. Over break, students often feel relieved knowing the grade they ended with for the semester. Knowing their hard work had paid off. If students didn’t know their grades, it would likely result in many emails to teachers asking how they can improve their grades, giving teachers another task to do over their much-needed break.

In the moment, taking finals after winter break may sound nice, but be honest with yourself. Don’t procrastinate taking the test. Get the hard work done ahead of time so you can actually take time off and enjoy your break.

Finals should be after winter break 

by: Abby Stahulak

First-semester finals used to be held after winter break, and students were content with the situation for many reasons. When the first day of school was moved earlier to mid August for the 2011-2012 school year, students became disappointed with the fact that finals were now held before winter break.

Finals should be after winter break because students are saved from missing finals for travel and have extended study time. 

Winter break is about the most desired time for a getaway–a long break in the middle of the school year, which is perfect for taking a sunny vacation during a harsh Midwest winter. With this, the cheapest flights are usually during the work week, and fewer people fly because of commitments, which means less money to spend on airfare. Lots of students travel during break, and many leave the week before school is let out, therefore missing their final exams. This means they would have to make it up at a later date. If these students’ teachers decide they want to extend a bit of gratitude to students who are missing the final day, they might offer the test the week prior. 

However, if students need to miss the week of finals and take the test early, they then have to cram the week before, when new material is likely still being taught, and they won’t have enough time to retain and study all the information before they have to take the test. If these students are struggling and have the offer to take the test early, they’ll most likely not have enough time to prepare and get the help they need and could have had if they were taking the test at a later date. 

Chances are, teachers who offer this are not willing to have the student take the test during their available study hall periods, meaning that the student then has to schedule an appointment in the testing center. Knowing the testing center, it is usually booked solid the week before finals. If the student can’t find time in the testing center to take the test early, they have limited options from there. The blame and responsibility then fall back onto the student, making it seem like it’s their fault for missing the week of finals. However, they aren’t the ones booking the trip and deciding the travel dates. 

If first-semester finals take place after winter break, it gives students more time to study and prepare. To most students, the thought of preparing for tests over a long two-week break seems jarring and unreasonable; it would most likely be very effective. Within the two-week break, students taking exams after the break have the perfect amount of time to study and have an exciting break. For a lot of students, the extra time for studying would drastically increase their scores on the final. Accounting for holidays, it would be expected that if a student were to reach out for extra help or materials to study, the teacher would then respond within a respected amount of time to help the student perform to the best of their ability on the upcoming final.

If students are given more time to study, they might come to think that they would still have assignments to complete over the break; however, this would not be the case. If students have an entire two weeks to study, then they should only be using the two weeks to study, and no other classwork assignments should be given or collected. Wouldn’t it be nice if, after the long break, students only had to show up for 1-3 periods a day for the first week to complete the finals? Taking finals after the break might seem like a burden, but wouldn’t it be nice to spend an extra two weeks studying for a final instead of cramming?