Why Midterms Are Good For Students

By Tessa McRae

As the winter approaches, students nationwide prepare for fun in the snow, the holiday season, and the New Year. These are all things we as a student body agree is nothing but joy. But as we creep closer and closer, midterms also await us.

Indy Minkoff, a student at Irvington High School, said “I despise the midterms, too much work and too much stress. I think midterms are horrible.”

Today I am here to offer you a different perspective. Midterms are actually a good thing and will help us not only in the moment, but also set up habits that will yield long term success.

Alex Hempstead, a sophomore at Irvington High School, said “It is a great baseline and it’s a great way to see how students are doing and it should be required. It also helps you prepare for finals and refreshes the information.”

Instead of viewing midterms as a negative, why can’t we look at the positives. It will improve your test taking abilities which are very important in school. Also, being forced to review the older material from the year will help you tremendously when you need to remember them for your final at the end of the year.

So why is a midterm any different from a final? Other than having more information on the final, both assessments are derived from the same concept. Being able to remember all of the vital information you learned from a course whether said information was presented in September or in May. Studying for big exams is crucial for all students. The Bar Exam, The Series 7 and the Series 63 are all examples of important tests that some of us will have to take to achieve our goals. You will have to study an immense amount of information for those tests. Midterms and Finals are great practices for other big tests.

As a student, obviously midterms are annoying. They aren’t meant to be fun. But it is important to recognize the valuable lessons that you can learn from them. That is why schools give them. To teach students how to study properly, and how to digest information in the moment so they will remember it for a long time. Not because they want to waste our time.