Finals can be a stressful time for both students and teachers. Students have to study and prepare for multiple finals from all of their classes. Some teachers have to create different finals for each of their classes. This tends to be the reason behind the stress. Luckily, finals are said to cost no more than 10% of a students’ grade and can relieve some of that stress. We went around and asked those who are affected by finals their feelings about this subject.

We asked people what is their opinion of finals and do they like the idea of them. Multiple people agreed that finals are necessary to judge the aptitude of a students’ ability in a particular class. Giovanny Medrano, a Sophomore says, “Although I do hate them, I do think they’re fair.” After all, that is the purpose of them; to reflect what a student has learned in the class.

However, some classes the final can be more difficult than in others; Giovanny says, “I have to remember all the way back and I have to study all the way back and it’s too much information to handle.” He says that most of his classes are this way. This is a struggle because you have to remember information from the beginning of the semester and most people don’t have the capacity to remember that much in the given time expectation without notes or practices as a refresher to help.

A few people expressed their concerns for how finals should be approached. Ms. Marin says, “There are students with test anxiety and who need accommodations to make their testing environment fair.”

On this subject, Andrew Brubaker, a Senior, says that, “It could be handled differently for some of the students that learn at a different pace than others. Like the students with IEPs or just anybody who needs some sort of [different learning environment].” Thus these students struggle more than others; not because of the difficulty of the final, but because of the environment. For such students, there should be alternative or different way to address their finals.