Before students can enjoy the Christmas magic of the most wonderful time of the year, they must first endure the most dreaded week of the semester. Before the break filled with family, fun, and holiday cheer must come finals: a time full of stress, insomnia, and last-minute studying. The end of the semester is a trying time for students as they prepare for their exams, often worth a significant percentage of their grades.
It’s well known this leads to students getting less than the ideal amount of sleep. Students like Michelle Thomas (sophomore, biochemistry) have already begun to mentally prepare for that harsh reality. She said, “For finals, I prepare myself not to sleep that much,” and, “I try to go to sleep by 10 or 11, but I usually stay up later studying.” But sleep deprivation comes with a , according to medical experts like Dr. Ackrill, a board member of the American Institute of Stress. She explains that people who get less than five hours of sleep for five nights in a row will test the same as a person who is legally drunk. The same goes for a person who has been awake for more than 36 hours. This kind of sleep deprivation places the same kind of physical strain on your body as binge drinking. A student's frontal cortex, the home of essential cognitive functions, will begin to shut down, leading to less memory retention and poorer academic performance.
The solution offered to students is to simply begin studying sooner. That advice might be helpful, Alaina Burghardt (senior, Spanish and global studies) explains, if the actual test was all there was to worry about. But in reality, many classes also assign final projects in the weeks leading up to finals. Burghardt shared, “I haven’t started studying for [my finals] because my classes have also assigned presentations as well as papers which have deadlines this week, so they have to take precedence.” This leaves less time for students to actually begin compiling and reviewing for material that will be on their exams.
Even students who are on top of their study schedule feel the nebulous angst of finals negatively affecting their mental health. Abigail Timothy (sophomore, biochemistry) admitted that she’s done everything right preparing for her finals early but has still found her nights haunted by the specter of upcoming exams. She exclaimed, “I've been anxious… I usually study throughout the day, but I still can’t sleep. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Some have questioned the validity of an academic tradition that time and time again has demonstrated clear harm to the health of students, with many of the interviewed students expressing dissatisfaction with a formal exam’s ability to capture how well they’ve absorbed class material. As Michelle Thomas (year, major) put it, “For me, tests don’t always seem to measure ability accurately. I feel like there are different ways to show that you understood the concepts [taught in class].”
In lieu of a formal, sit-down, written exam, projects that can have students synthesize and implement the information they learned in class may be better ways for students to demonstrate their comprehension of the course. This would help cut down on much of the cramming and memorization that students are used to when preparing for finals. Another alternative is incremental testing, having smaller, more frequent tests, instead of one or two large exams. This may help with students' long-term retention of important concepts.
But, as far as formal exams go, it does seem that cumulative exams are than non-cumulative exams. This is because it forces students to actually go back over notes and material from the entire semester and often connect them together to study. Similarly, because cumulative exams contain more material, students tend to allocate more time to studying for them over a longer period of time with space between study times. So, while it does require more time and energy, that seems to be exactly why they work better. Several students, like Daniella Brobbey (sophomore, marketing) concede, “Even though I don’t believe exams are effective, I feel like [cumulative exams] help students go over everything students have learned in the class; as annoying as it is, I do feel that it helps.”
For better or for worse, finals week and all the stress that comes with it are here to stay. So students, buckle in for the final stretch and remember that break is just around the corner!
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.