preview

Finals Week Stress

Decent Essays

With extensive study guides, extended test-taking periods, and high levels of stress, staying up past midnight is not an uncommon task for high-schoolers during finals week. It’s mind-blowing to know that one substantial exam could potentially destroy your grade and possibly GPA, and they are even seen by colleges when reading your application. A single exam could prevent you from getting into the college of your dreams! Final exams are negatively affecting high school student performance and health (grades 9-12).
Stress is a very common idea that tends to taunt high-schoolers during finals week; after all, finals week is often known as “death week” (Staff). According to a study done by Victoria Tennant, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Education, stress is a neutral feeling that can either be perceived as positive or negative but is generally thought of as negative …show more content…

Lewis, the author of Stress-Proofing Your Child, once said, “Stress is pressure” (Tennant), and the majority of this pressure can be found in the expectations of peers, teachers, and parents. According to the “Our Turn Column”, the main purpose of a final exam is to give students who did poorly on previous quizzes or tests or didn’t understand the material one ‘final’ chance to improve their grade (Staff). These major exams, however, are actually proving to be very harmful to students’ grades and health. Since stress is associated with the brain, it tends to get into the minds of the students, decreasing testing scores. When a student is stressed, they have the tendency to forget everything that they had studied the night before which just leads to more stress; as this stress builds up, it overtakes everything else in the mind. This can lead to blank short answers and essays or random guesses on the multiple choice. A lower grade would then be received due to the stress that the student was

Get Access