Should Midterm Exams Be Eliminated from Academia?

Illustration by Dana Binfet/The Corsair.

Within the next couple of weeks, Santa Monica College (SMC) students will be undergo the worst portion of the semester: midterm exam time. During this time period, SMC students will experience sleepless nights, stressful mornings, and long days. Many will be drowning in class notes and textbooks, forming large study groups.

So much is happening during this time that it’s easy for students to feel overworked. The average college student is already overloaded with many tasks in their lives such as taking multiple classes, going to work, caring for children, and managing health issues.

So for them to take time and prepare for multiple midterm exams just adds to their already hectic lives. It’s easy for them to suffer from stress and anxiety when so much is riding on their grades. Every student faces the dilemma of wanting to do well on exams but the stress of it all isn’t worth it.

Stressing over exams isn't beneficial to any student in the long run because many end up performing horribly because of it, which impacts their progress in classes.

The many factors that students experience while preparing for midterm exams are a clear indication that exams shouldn't be used to determine a student’s overall grade; in fact they shouldn’t even be used in academia at all.

Exams used to measure and determine a student's overall performance in classes is an outdated and seemingly prehistoric method. Even some professors feel that exams are old fashioned.

In the Atlantic article titled "Thanks, But Students Don't Need Final Exams," a Harvard history professor said, "Life is not structured like the exam anymore, Life is an open book; it’s not a closed book."

Exams don't accurately reflect if a student is actually learning the material that is being taught to them. While preparing for exams, students spend the majority of their time studying and memorizing, but it doesn’t mean they understand the material.

It’s easy for any student to memorize the material; all one has to do is constantly re-read. Memorization undermines the basic concept that shapes academia, which is learning.

If this truly reflected the concept that students are learning, then practically every student would pass an exam without any problems. The fact that it’s almost rare that an entire class can pass an exam is very telling about how exams don’t measure a student's academic progress.

Many academic professionals don't seem to understand the basic concept that exams don’t define intelligence. If students don’t perform well on an exam, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t intelligent or don’t understand the material. 

In fact, there are many things that students experience during exams that factor in their overall performance. For example, testing anxiety is one of the main underlying issues that can affect a student while taking an exam. Anxious students are stressed about the outcome of the exam, which makes it easy for them to forget the material.

According to an article published in the Brigham Young University student newspaper titled “College students struggle with exam stress and anxiety," 2,000 college students across the country were a part of a study that found that fear of lower grades and eventual job market failure were factors in test anxiety.

Another factor that can affect a student's performance during an exam is health issues, whether it be physical or mental. Dealing with health issues can really take a toll on someone, especially students, making it hard to study.

Many professors never factor in all of these issues that students deal with while preparing for exams. Instead of making student’s lives more stressful by constantly assigning exams that determine their grades, professors should think of alternative ways to grade their students.

For example, academic professionals could simply base grades on classwork, homework and attendance. Another method is by assigning a project that could reflect the material that was taught in the semester. Students are paying for their education, so they should be able to have options with how they are assessed academically.

We’re in a new world where exams are pointless. It’s time for academia to adapt.