Final Exam Questions – and Answers

I am not a fan of high school final exams. Given the way finals are administered at my school, I am not sure what function they serve. I have lots of questions about finals and their effect on students.

Why are we giving final exams? Is it because colleges give them? Our classes don’t meet twice a week or in large lectures. Our kids are subjected to plenty of tests. We are constantly testing (and that is another issue). Why are final exams so important? Large scale, high stakes tests are not a regular feature of adult life. What is our rationale for having them twice a year?

If the rationale for giving finals is college preparation, why do we excuse second semester seniors from finals when they are the students in most need of the preparation? Why do we give the same type of tests to our first semester freshman, who are months out of middle school and years away from college?

Why should all courses give finals at the same time? Clearly not all teachers are ready for finals since students regularly report that the pace of instruction nears warp speed as finals approach in many classes. Wouldn’t our assessments be more authentic if we didn’t give them in three days?

Is one seventy-five minute test the best indicator of eighteen weeks of learning? Can we get an accurate and fair picture of a student’s achievement through a single sampling?

Frequently, students’ performance on finals does not match their performance on other assessments. What does this mean? Do teachers question the effectiveness of their finals?  Some courses regularly curve the finals because students score poorly. Is a curve the best solution? What does it mean when many students don’t do well on a final?  Does moving the grade markers solve the real problem?

Here is my answer key:

Objective tests are easy to grade. They are easy to quantify. They are quick and dirty ways to measure what can be measured in numbers. Unfortunately, learning is messy. When all we look at is the statistics, we may miss the relationships, the growth, and the joy of learning.

Even when finals are more authentic, the weight and delivery of the test create significant issues. Why should one seventy-five minute experience or a single assignment be worth as much as four and half weeks of class time? Many teachers have decided that it shouldn’t. So their finals involve a project, paper, test, speech, blood sample, journey to Katmandu, and a pound of flesh! What a wonderful solution! I am not exaggerating when I tell you that one my children had a final that had so many pieces it lasted more than five weeks and threatened to eat her winter break!

For my freshmen, finals do one thing: ruin their grades. Students who have been earning A’s and B’s all semester long find that, thanks to one assessment, they have C’s. It is demoralizing. One of my colleagues suggested that we are coddling students with “effort” points and extra credit. She said that their quarter grades are artificially inflated and we need finals to measure their “real” ability. So finals are bait and switch; you thought you were doing well in class: surprise!  

The most correct answer is that finals are a hold over from the distant past. Like lecturing, rote memorization, and corporal punishment, we have found better ways to help kids learn. As more than thirty years of state achievement testing continues to teach us, these assessments do not improve children’s education. 

Could we create twenty first century finals? Maybe. It would far better to help kids actively apply and demonstrate their learning every day. Learning is never final.