Finals week has just passed and many students are now reminiscing upon the stress that accompanies finals week, especially in honors classes. This increased stress is due to the many honors classes that began finals before their intended dates on Wednesday the 19th, Thursday the 20th, and Friday the 21st. However, in many honors, AP, and IB classes, this was not the case.

Freshman Alexis Menor shared her schedule for her finals, saying, “For trig class, I have to do 100 questions for the review, and I still have 3 late assignments that I haven’t done, so that’s about 200 questions. For Spanish, I have 4 different final exams. For World History AP, I have a DBQ essay, multiple choice questions, and SAQ questions. Then, for English, I have to study about 100 words, so my stress level is extremely high.” Her situation, however busy it may seem, is not uncommon for most honor students.

Students are faced with overwhelming pressure and many hold the belief that the finals they are so stressed about should not be as important as the teachers make them. Ashna Pardhan, aligns with such feelings, commenting, “[Finals are] not even a good way to see how much students have learned. Since students are stressed over all these tests that they have to take at the same time, they will do worse on the tests than they normally would; it is even worse for honors kids who have to stress every day for over a week because of the number of tests they have.” The frustration over these final exams is ubiquitous amongst students since tests will largely determine the final grade that will go onto a student’s college transcript.

Such levels of stress are unhealthy for high schoolers, rendering them more unprepared for the hours of testing ahead of them.

Finals week is a very stressful time for all students, regardless of grade or class levels. These exams are remarkably important for a student’s future, and thus cannot be taken lightly. For that reason, high schoolers must push past the pressure of the last days of every semester and strive for the best possible score on these finals.