Imagine it’s the week before the long anticipated two week winter break. It’s only a couple days away and you can hardly wait. All you want to do is relax and kick back. Surprise! Instead of a relaxing week you now have five extremely important tests. This is what many State High students experienced during the week where they should have been able to relax. Teachers need to stop scheduling important tests all during the same week and sometimes on the same day! However, teachers still believe it is a good idea to give tests the week before winter break so the students do not forget the information. It causes unnecessary and easily avoidable stress which is both unhealthy and unfair to the students.

Tests cause stress to almost everyone who has to take them. Whether it be pressure from your parents to do well or an internal struggle with yourself there is always something or someone pushing you to do better. The week before winter break State High was filled with anxious students and teachers scrambling to grade last minute assignments. On top of all of this, they needed to pack up their things for the big move into the new building. This is a recipe for disaster. Freshman Ariana Angus said, “The week before break was more stressful than it should have been.” She is completely right. With the upcoming move into the new building and the anticipation for the time off of school, students were in no condition to take the overwhelming quantity of tests they were given. It was a poor decision made by the teachers and they should have waited until after break or earlier before the week before break.

Also, the amount of stress that these assignments did not produce a healthy learning environment. It has been proven many times that stress causes unhealthy effects on students. Along those lines, State High students were forced to stay up very late at night in order to study for their tests which causes even more unhealthy effects. The combination of stress and lack of sleep can lead to poor performance on the tests. Angus explained that she did not do her best on her tests because she had too many. Freshman Holly Feese had the same feelings. “My tests caused me way too much stress,” Feese said. The amount of tests students had also undoubtedly caused the teachers unhealthy amounts of stress as well. There was a limited amount of time to get them graded accurately and too many tests which would cause anyone anxiety. A business teacher Mrs. Bridget Ciolkosz said, “If teachers would think about staggering the tests a little bit it would be more helpful for students.” All students are asking for is a little more space in between their tests so they have time to relax and fully prepare.

All in all, the amount of tests that were given the week before winter break was too much and made students too stressed. Teachers should have planned a better time to give their tests to benefit not only their students but themselves as well. The anticipation for winter break should be filled with joy and thoughts of holiday cheer not thoughts of geometry and Romeo and Juliet.