Midterm Season Stress

Midterm Season Stress

Sabrina Tomei

With the Midterm season at Fairfield Ludlowe High School now behind us, many students are still left wondering what purpose these tests serve.

Some students find the amount of work stressful. An FLHS junior, Sofia Destaso, said “It feels much more stressful because I have to go back and relearn everything we went over from September to January. I have to go back and reteach everything to myself.”

According to a Board of Education policy, teachers have to create a common assessment to give students the same experience.

Christine Kennedy, a Chemistry teacher at Ludlowe, said “The chemistry teachers all worked on the midterm together to create it as fair[ly] as possible.”

“We try to make sure students have the same experience when taking the midterm.” Dr. Greg Hatzis, Ludlowe’s Principal explains.

Yet, many teachers are also giving other tests and projects in the week leading up to the midterm. 

“Teachers have certain requirements based on grading practice guidelines we had to create. One of them was that they needed to get a certain number of summatives per term,” Dr. Hatzis commented.

Because of this grading practice, some teachers have to get summatives in before the midterms. This can be a burden on students, especially when taking higher level classes.

Ava Cito, a senior, explains her experience: “Especially when taking AP and Honors classes, you’re getting your regular homework on top of Midterms; it’s basically the same as any other week.”

Students also find it difficult to come back after Winter break into the midterm exam preparations.

“Since midterms are right after Christmas break they hit you very unexpectedly. I feel like students are expected to come back after break ready to work and remember everything they’ve learned since September,” Cito shared.

Dr. Hatzis explained the reasoning behind the scheduling of the exams,“When we split up the year we split up the terms into equal numbers of days. It turns out the half of the year is when midterms are placed. It just so happens that it is in the third week of January.”

Hatzis continued, “With the Martin Luther King Jr weekend, we thought it would be good to give students more time to study.” 

It can be stressful for students with the amount of work presented, but overall, it presents as an opportunity for students to evaluate progress in their courses and see where they need to improve.