With the first semester now coming to an end, classes are closing out units and reviewing material. For students, this means having a project or test as the final summative grade. Although projects are used as final grades for many classes, cumulative tests are the best way to test and review material. 

Tests should be used as the final grade in classes for a variety of reasons. First, tests better prepare students to memorize material and be able to actually hold information. A study from the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology proved that testing can improve retention even after long intervals of time. This can help so that students are able to recall information months after learning it, which will help in all aspects of school. 

Further, in higher education, the final grades in classes are mostly dependent on exam grades. This means that by not having final exams in high school, students will be ill prepared when it comes to having final exams in college that are worth a large part of the overall grades. Taking final tests in high school allows students to learn how to study and improve test-taking skills, which will set them up to succeed in the next level of education. 

Final exams don’t only prepare students for college. In AP classes, the entire year is leading up to one AP exam in May. Since there are no “AP Projects,” for most AP classes, in order to get the college credit, it is important that students, especially those in AP classes, are used to taking exams. 

Having a cumulative test will not only help students to practice their test-taking abilities in preparation for the AP exam, but it will also allow students a way to review the first half of the class’s material. Even if teachers just administer unit tests, students are pushed to review that material thoroughly, which helps in preparation for the AP Exam. By taking a cumulative test, students are essentially practicing taking half of the AP exam. If students only have projects in AP classes, they will not be ready for the high-pressure content recall necessary to succeed on the AP exam in April, which can negatively affect their scores on the AP exam.  

Practicing test taking and studying is not only important for students in AP classes, but for students in all classes. While having projects may allow students time to give their best work and input their creativity, it is not an effective way to help students review the material. By having a final exam, students are forced to review all of the material to study. With projects, students often do not have to thoroughly review all of the material as they can rely on the Internet or their notes.

When students have to study for tests, they are forced to internalize the material and remember as much as possible. By doing this, students can learn the material and truly understand it instead of just putting down information on Google Slides or posters for a project. This allows for better retention of the information learned across the semester. A study by Applied Cognitive Psychology supports and shows the fact that “testing can enhance long-term retention of course knowledge.”

This does not mean that projects are not a good option for a final exam. Unlike tests, projects can provide an outlet for creativity and allow students more time to use the information they are reviewing. Projects are also often favorable to students who would consider themselves bad at taking tests. 

While all of these things are important for learning and grades, it still does not mean teachers should choose to have projects over tests. Although tests can be harder for students, higher education is reliant on tests for grades, and if students don’t practice something they find difficult, they will never improve, which will be detrimental for them in college. It is imperative that students practice test taking for not only college, but for AP exams and other important tests such as the ACT and SAT. In a world where exams have so much of an impact on students’ futures, having projects in classes is not helping students as much as having exams.  

Overall, having tests as the final is more beneficial to students for numerous reasons. Final exams prepare students for college and university, help students excel on AP exams and other standardized tests, and they allow for more extensive and disciplined reviews of material. If you are conflicted on what to give as a final this December, choose to administer tests so students can be pushed to truly improve and learn in a way that projects cannot let them do.

For years, students have dreaded finals at the end of the year. Teachers utilize these exams as a way of measuring how much a student has learned over the first semester—the most significant factor in causing this dread.

With cumulative final exams, all the information the students know is often crammed into a 30 or so question test, which can increase anxiety and stress during finals week. For some, the stress of having to perform well to uphold quality grades can invoke unethical or immoral methods of performing on the test. For others, the stress of the test environment itself inaccurately represents what the student actually knows. 

Since tests have such a disproportionate weighting in our grading system—for AP classes, summatives, such as midterms, weighing 70% of the overall grade and formatives weighing 30% of the overall grade—it is crucial we choose a facet which best represents students’ knowledge. This pressure to perform well often pushes students to use extreme measures to ensure a passing score, such as cheating or even skipping the test to take it later. 

Another factor leading to increased stress during finals week is the actual environment of the test-taking. Many students struggle with test anxiety, in which they may freeze up or even forget the information they’ve just reviewed as a result of high expectations, previous test outcomes, fear of failure, pressure to perform well or perfectionism. This struggle misrepresents the content the student actually knows and understands, and as a result, the student’s grades may suffer and inaccurately demonstrate their true knowledge and capabilities in the subject. 

One of the largest downsides to final exams for midterms is the level of procrastination when it comes to studying for the exam. Students will put off studying for a final until the night of the exam, leading to a short-night’s sleep and bad performance on the test. Through this method of learning, information is crammed into student’s brains the night of the test, which is shortly forgotten soon after the exam. 

A way to eliminate these harmful factors is by utilizing final projects instead of exams. Projects, whether they are completed individually or in groups, are a good representation of students’ actual knowledge over the semester. Projects are given to complete within a number of weeks, which highlights the magnitude of how much work is needed to be done. 

One of the biggest advantages to implementing projects over exams as finals for schools is the level of information retention. Projects typically require students to learn, analyze and explain the matter, as opposed to exams that encourage simple memorization. Projects also tend to be more interactive. By being more interactive, projects induce a deeper retention of information as students are able to refer back to specific examples, such as through a song, drawing or mnemonic, as compared to multiple choice questions which can easily be blended together and forgotten whilst being recalled. Students can then carry this easily retained information with them later on. 

Traditional final exams place unneeded stress on students and often misrepresent their actual knowledge and understanding of the curriculum. The pressure to perform well and upkeep their good grades can lead to extreme measures that will only misrepresent their true knowledge. By adopting projects rather than exams for finals, schools better evaluate student’s comprehension and understanding of a course’s curriculum while also creating a longer retention of the material.