Abigail S., Paige P.
May 18, 2026
End of the year finals in the GA Upper School curriculum can cause many students to feel overwhelmed and stressed. Packing a whole year’s worth of material into an exam can make the preparation process intimidating and exhausting for anyone.
Instead of relying on a single final that covers material from the whole school year, a better alternative would be to separate it into a midterm and a shorter final. This would reduce stress and lead to a better performance on the exams since there is less material to recall. In addition, the studying process can feel more approachable and less daunting for students.
The choice to implement midterm exams into the existing course framework at GA is a paramount decision that is accompanied by innumerable benefits.
Midterm exams would notably decrease the necessary workload to prepare for final exams, allowing students to more thoroughly refine their weak areas to better prepare for the final exam. Implementing these exams would make final exam studying more sustainable, efficient, and effective.
Beyond the potential for better studying, midterm exams can potentially improve the quality of life for students. Reviewing a year’s content in approximately a week’s time can prove enormously stressful for students, especially since the exam accounts for a significant percentage of the final grade. Implementing midterms would force students to review nearly half of course material covered early, leaving them with only half of the class content left to review by the date of finals.
Many students have expressed different opinions with regards to time management and how much the final can affect their grade. If the test was splitted, it could also make their studying more efficient and effective given the time frame. Students have also shared that the test being worth around ten to fifteen percent of their grade can make it even more overwhelming and stressful.
“By dividing it into midterms and finals, you can get a test from two different points where your mind is at, and it’s less stressful since it’s not so heavily graded.” current freshman, Penny Marchese said. “Also, say you don’t do well in the midterm, then there is still time to bump that grade up before it really matters.”
“I think it’s unfair for 20% of your grade to depend on one test all year, for example, you might get A’s but then bomb the final, then the only grade that gets put on the transcript is the final grade at the end of the year,” Marchese said.
Teachers also agree that midterms would benefit students and cause less stress to them as well. Students wouldn’t have such a large amount of content to study in a short amount of time which would help to reduce common feelings of nervousness and stress towards the end of the year.
“I think anytime you have a summative test that requires a lot of content in a short amount of time to take, it’s stressful. But I do think a lot of ways you can overcome those fears or those stressors is by doing it more often,” Ms. Allison Rader, Roberts House Head said. “The only way you’re going to get better at running fast is by practicing running fast. So I do think midterms would help chunk it down into maybe smaller intervals.”
That will be in the best interest of GA students. Although final exams are helpful in cumulatively placing the capstone on skills learned in a course, having midterm exams could help with overall stress level, reducing pressure towards the end of the year, ultimately improving the quality of life for students across the academy.