What you’ve heard is true: midterms are back and they don’t seem to be going away. As of the 2023-2024 school year, Southern Lehigh High School is reincorporating midterm exams into every year-long course. For the past few years, students’ final grades have been comprised of four quarter grades and one final exam or project. With the current school year, the final grade for each course will include both a midterm and final grade derived from either a cumulative exam or project.
Midterms will take place during the first week of January following the winter break. The schedule for testing has not been finalized, but administration said it will be released closer to November. The schedule will run similar to finals week in that students will have no more than two exams in one day; however, the testing schedule will be a combination of full and half days, and attendance on these days is mandatory for all students.
There’s nothing that students hate more than taking tests. Therefore, it’s understandable why Southern Lehigh High School students reacted with mixed emotions to the return of midterms. While adding an additional stressor to students’ lives in the middle of the school year may seem daunting, midterms will benefit students in the long run.
“It’s a good challenge to have,” high school principal Mr. Joshua Miller said. “This is about doing well on the test and understanding the content, but also learning about yourself, stress management, and how to overcome it.”
In 2023, most American colleges and universities will conduct midterms at the conclusion of each semester. According to Mr. Miller, around 80 to 82% of SLHS students are college bound, so it’s important that midterms are administered at the high school level for students to acclimate to the process of completing and studying for midterms, before they reach college.
“Former students said that after taking a semester-long college course with a final exam at the end, they found it was way easier than to take [a high school] final exam where they would have a question from September,” Mr. Miller said.
Splitting the final exam of each class into two tests, a midterm and final, each worth 10% of the overall grade, cuts down the amount of content that students must remember for each test. In previous years, if a student did poorly on the final exam, worth 20% of their grade, they would suffer, without the ability to redeem themselves. Now that the final exam is only worth 10% of the course grade, this will give students peace of mind, especially if they have already done well on their midterms.
“In past years, we would have to stress to make sure that we remember everything from August to June,” junior Mason Voght said. “With midterms, there will be less that you need to know, and more time can be spent actually understanding the content, and not just trying to know the basics.”
Many teachers agree that midterms will have a positive impact on students. Although every Southern Lehigh class had one final exam or project worth 20% of the overall grade last year, some teachers still administered a midterm exam as a regular quarter two test grade. Specifically, all College Prep Algebra II students took midterms last year.
“The whole reason we did midterms and finals last year was that we wanted to get students prepared for college,” math and computer science teacher Mr. Jonathan Piperato said. “It’s also more manageable for the students when there’s less content to cover.”
The data used from midterms can also be used by teachers to decipher which topics students may need more help with. This will improve retention and allow students to fill in any learning gaps where necessary.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of midterms is the possibility of a final exam waiver. In this scenario, if a student has A’s in all four quarters and the midterm, their final could be waived as a reward for their hard work. While this policy is still a work in progress, Mr. Miller sees this as a possibility for future school years.
“We’re hoping to get a lot of data this year to make better adjustments for following years,” Mr. Miller said. “I think everyone is really keeping an open mind which is all I ask them to do.”
