As students battle their stress on a normal day, they realize that their stress becomes multiplied during midterms.
Often times the reason of this stress is due to lack of preparation or the insufficiency of teaching of the material in the first place. They automatically feel as if they will fail their exams and quickly begin to panic.
“It all depends on how you look at it,” sophomore Maya Conn said. “I think some teachers have prepared us well, but some have not. Of course no one knows exactly what it is on the test, but I do think teachers could prepare us more by reviewing rather than making us just do [notes] or do book work.”
Some teachers will even try to give their students study guides days before the actual test to study from until the actual exam.
“I think I prepared my biology classes by providing a study guide to help focus their study time, but ultimately it is up to my students to actually prepare for the test,” biology teacher Cathy Howard said.
Students completely forget their grade is entirely on them and not on the teacher.
“I feel my students are prepared completely,” history teacher Lisa Heilmeier said. “My biggest concern is that students do not do their part because teachers give all the information needed, but often students do not review the material and because of that, do not know how to apply what they have learned.”
Students also tend to forget they have seen all of the material presented to them on the exam or use the material they learn continuously throughout the course.
Examples of continuous use would be in English or foreign language courses.
In English, the use of literary devices is vital to analyzing literature. Once the students learn the terms, it is their job to apply the devices to the work they do.
Due to the use of the terms being so repetitive, students must simply relax and realize they have seen the words before and the definition is somewhere in their brain.
Other subjects like Spanish constantly use everything the students learn throughout every single Spanish class they will ever take.
“The best thing about Spanish is that it is not a one-and-done subject,” Spanish teacher Dana Kester said. “[Students] do not learn a topic, word, or grammar structure and then never see it again; we keep using it everyday. So my objective when having my classes review for midterms is to remind the students of those topics, vocabulary words, or grammar structures they already know.”
Most teachers do not forget to prepare their students for a big exam. They understand exams are a big deal to their students and will work to help them.
“My teachers work really hard at making sure we thoroughly understand the class materials,” junior Nick Rinaldi said.
Students just need to relax and focus on studying ahead of time rather than waiting until the day before their exams.
“To relax after studying or after an exam I just eat Doritos and watch That 70’s Show,” Conn said.
They should also start taking more responsibility for their actions leading up to exams rather than blaming their problems on the teachers.
Teachers are there to help their students remember the material and are working hard to do so.
Kester said, “[Reviewing] is just a matter of reminding the students that they already know how to do this and are totally capable of it.”
