In early September, the MCPS Board of Education’s Management Committee accepted the proposal to eliminate two-hour final exams for high school students starting in the 2016-2017 school year. MCPS students primarily reacted to the news with an outpouring of excitement. After all, who likes taking tests anyways? However, some students admit that final exams are necessary in order to help them become fully prepared for college.

Every school year when final exams approach, most teachers take two to three weeks to prepare and review for the cumulative test. This means that students lose time that could be dedicated to class instruction. Also, when final exams approach, teachers typically rush to get through the rest of the curriculum, due to time constraints at the end of the school year.

Additionally, final exams are unbelievably stressful, as students have to not only prepare for a vigorous test on its own, but also remember material from the beginning of the semester. Final exams count for 25 percent of the final semester grade, yet does a single test truly demonstrate if students understand everything they have learned in such an extended period of time? The final exam system is inherently flawed in its structure.

According to MCPS’ Memorandum, marking period assignments such as unit tests and projects will take the place of final exams. MCPS stated that its main goal is to provide students with more frequent means of measuring their learning. By incorporating the material into manageable assignments, students will have an approachable way to grasp the abundance of knowledge they are presented with in each class. At least, that is the intention. Already, some have raised concerns that such assessments will be graded too subjectively to truly evaluate students’ mastery of the material.

The Washington Post recently came out with an unsigned editorial that called MCPS out on trying to take the “easy way” out of the larger problem of MCPS students generally performing poorly on semester finals. For example, 65 percent of students failed the Algebra 1 exam this past year. These statistics obviously show the extreme difficulty surrounding the final exams that students encounter. Many parents who posted on the MCPS website comments section generally seem to disagree with the county’s decision, explaining how abolishing final exams will hinder students’ performances when they get into college. These parents’ concerns seem overblown, given that college-bound students regularly take three-hour AP exams, not to mention the SAT or ACT. These students graduate high school with plenty of experience taking high stakes exams.

By getting rid of final exams, MCPS students are one step closer to fully comprehending subjects rather than simply learning information for a test at the end of the year. Alternatives such as projects and portfolios, if well designed by MCPS, will make the high school experience more geared towards real-world work situations such as presentations, thus preparing students for the future.