I walk into my calculus class ready to learn all about the crazy things in the subject. I went to sit down at my desk then hear my teacher say “clear your desks”, we had a quiz… my heart sank.

I, like many others, hate taking quizzes and tests. They really aren’t a test of knowledge but a test of memorization, because in reality that is all a student does. Now I know others might argue that these things are necessary but they aren’t really, they just put undue pressure on the students, under which many students crack. Many tests have too much of a weight on a grade, if tests and quizzes can’t be completely erased then their weight on a grade should be lessened. Tests are not nice.

Many of my friends, students themselves, just cram all of the info into their brains before a test. That really isn’t learning, its memorization. Just 3 or 4 days after the quiz if you were to ask them about the subject they wouldn’t be able to answer. I myself have experienced this, and it’s not right. So if a test is memorizing, then what is learning?

Tests, quizzes, exams, etc. put unneeded pressure on a student, and this causes many of them to fail. People can’t work under pressure, so why put them into a situation where they have too? Makes no sense, right? Yet every day we do it, and many students fail due to their inability to work like that. I have watched many of my friends stare at a question, blank out on it, then right after remember how to do the question or whatever the answer was, and then beat themselves up about it.
“Hey I have like 10 homework assignments turned in, I have an A!”
2 days later…
“I have my 10 homework assignments with A’s and 1 test with a D, so my grade is a C”

Now I don’t think that is very fair. Tests and quizzes have a lot of weight on your final grade, 50% in some cases, and that isn’t good. That pretty much means that you can do all of your homework and have an A in class, and then not do well on the tests and quizzes and then get C or a D in the class. This just isn’t fair to the people who try hard but just honestly can’t do quizzes or tests. On the other side of the fence, in the camp of the slackers, there are those who use the test to skim by in class while doing little to none of their homework because it is “insignificant” to their final grade. That’s just isn’t right.

Now since you have been so nice as to read to this point, I will share a little secret with you; I am an honor roll student who barely ever studies and passes all of the quizzes and tests with A’s and B’s, I know, it’s a shocker. The truth is, even though I can pass them no problem, I still see them as unfair to the other students, because not everyone can just pass them with little effort and struggle to pass. I see tests and quizzes as an unfair tool that in no way measure your knowledge, but your memorization skills. Also they weights on the shoulders of students that can’t deal with pressure well and thus crack. They are gateways for slackers to pass a class, and a wall for those who can’t pass them despite their efforts. Tests and quizzes are just unfair, period.