Teachers are taking advantage of the modified schedule this week by making two part finals. Because classes all vary in length, some class periods last thirty minutes and others are sixty minutes long. Many teachers have decided that there is too much information for one final, but that shouldn’t necessitate a two part final.

Two part finals are unfair because they provide all classes with different amounts of time to prepare for the exams. The final should only be one test that is sixty minutes long, and making the final two different parts for a total of an hour and a half of testing adds to students’ stress.

When students have two part finals, they are more likely to only study long-term for the first part of the test. This delays the effectiveness of studying over a long period of time for part two of the test, meaning that knowledge will be only remembered for a short period of time. The key to acing these two part finals is memorization and timing. This doesn’t distinguish the students who actually know the material versus those who just crammed in information on a short term basis just to get past stage one.

A semester is a long time, and students cover a lot of information. Teachers should be able to structure the test so that the most important information stands out, and the test can be taken in sixty minutes. Finals are becoming really long tests filled with every detail that was covered in class. Rather than focusing on how well students understand the most important information, getting an A on a final may just mean that one was able to cram more information into their head than anyone else.

Students should have only one final exam for every class that summarizes the most important details about the subject area. It is a spanish final, not spanish finals. It is a math final, not math finals.