About a year ago, a new policy was introduced that was meant to decrease students’ stress and improve academic performance. The policy would ensure teachers from different subjects would not be stacking tests on the same day, assigning specific days for subjects to test on. Almost a year later, and students still complain of tests on Mondays, on the same day, of stress and frustration.
“Yeah, I have a lot of tests on the same day… [usually] Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Lila Langebeer, sophomore, said.
Stacked tests exhaust mental energy in the days before, as the studying for each test has to occur all together.
“I go over the material in the class before,” said Langebeer, averaging about three hours of studying for a test.
Either all the hours of studying needed for a test get tripled or doubled, encroaching on time for sleeping, eating, resting, completing other assignments, or, those hours get cut to fit studying for more classes, making students less prepared for all of their assessments.
Teachers and experts emphasize that studying that isn’t crammed, and spread out, is far more effective; therefore, spreading out tests should maximize the study time students will be able to do.
On the day of, back to back assessments are equally exhausting. By the second or third test, there is sure to be a lack of energy and focus, which is bound to have negative effects on the result of those tests. Especially for students loaded with AP classes, summative assignments occupy the entire period, and are styled to AP exams, requiring grueling effort. Lower performance on the assessments that are meant to measure and predict future scores on the actual AP exam for that class mean students could be less prepared when it is time for that exam, an exam that often awards college credit and is paid for.
“I do worse on [tests on the same day] compared to what I would do if they had their own day,” Langabeer said. “My grades have gone down.”
The benefits of the summative testing schedule have already been enumerated, but issues persist with its enforcement. For a widely popular policy among students, a policy from the board that most students actually support and that would benefit from, it’s been hardly carried out. Phone caddies are in every classroom, but just moving a test a day forward or backward seems to be too much effort. While it’s understandable that teachers will have to adjust their lesson planning, which can be difficult, if that adjustment will benefit students, their very goal in teaching, then the need for the adjustment should far outweigh consequences of its process.