How do Final Exams Impact Our Mental Health?
By: AnnaSofia Cornish
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We've all taken some sort of tests in our lives but nothing compares to the intensive final exams. These exams are often taken in high school and college and are usually taken all in one week. Exam season happens either 2 or 3 times a year, depending on if the school uses semesters or trimesters. These exams serve as a review of everything learned in the semester. By doing well in these exams students show that they retained the information and can now apply it. While the idea behind final exams is beneficial, the implementation of this practice through the structure of final exams creates an intensely harsh environment. Since the exams are an important part of a curriculum, students and teachers prepare for around 6 exams for up to a month before this week. The demanding structure of final exams is detrimental to the mental health of both students and teachers.
Final exams are a major stressor in the lives of students. There is a lot of emphasis put on final exams and they are often worth a big percentage of students’ overall grades. Because of this, students spend up to a month preparing for final exams. They often review their notes, make flashcards and redo lessons they missed. The intense preparation for finals has over 80% of students experiencing stress during finals season, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. This means that the stress created by finals week doesn’t just affect a few students but the majority, meaning that it is a major issue. As we know, too much stress can have negative impacts on one's mental health as well as physical health. Excessive amounts of stress can often lead to mental health issues in the form of anxiety and depressive disorders that not only impacts students’ performance during finals season but also every other area of their lives. Students who suffer from anxiety have been found to score less on final exams than students who don’t.
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Since final exams have a rigid and intense structure, students are often left unable to seek help during finals seasons. This means that students who suffer from the stress and anxiety induced by final exams often struggle with their negative mental health alone. The structure of final exams is harsh towards students, the demanding environment causes many mental health issues such as stress and anxiety.
While the impact of final exams on the mental health of students is just starting to be addressed, there isn’t much awareness of the way final exams impact the mental health of teachers. Although teachers spend the whole year creating assignments for their students, the final assignment is the most crucial assignment of the year. Oftentimes, teachers take weeks or even a month to come up with the perfect final. Many teachers create tests for finals exams but some are starting to come up with essays or projects that take more time to plan and grade.
Many teachers take a lot of time and energy to make sure that their students get the grade they deserve. With multiple classes and often over 30 students in each of those classes, teachers have to go through a lot of final exams to determine the appropriate grade.
The responsibility of teachers is to prepare their students to do well in their specific subject as well as the world in general. This is a huge responsibility that often causes stress on teachers, especially when they see a student struggling. The amount of work, time and energy that goes into the creation as well as the grading of final exams often causes teachers to suffer from stress and anxiety during finals season.
While students and teachers are often seen as being on completely different levels, they both feel similar things during finals season. Both students and teachers are susceptible to stress and anxiety due to the structure of final exams. It is important to understand how everyone in the classroom environment is impacted by this stressful time of the year so that we can decrease extra stressors and increase efficiency. When everyone is on ewelldge 2 it is important to be aware of others emotions and take time to appreciate those around us as as sprinkle a little bit of positivity into our lives.
Works Cited
Cianciulli, Anthony. “Final Exams Impact Well-Being.” Medium, Valenti Voices, 15 Dec. 2018,
https://medium.com/uhvalentischool/final-exams-impact-well-being-9509dd7e95ab.
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Frausto, Zoey. “Opinion – Teachers Get Just as Stressed as Students during Finals.” Enochs Eagle Eye, 15 Dec. 2021, https://enochseagleeye.org/1435/opinion/opinion-teachers-get-just-as-stressed-as-students -during-finals/.
