Two exams: one in the morning, a twenty-minute “lunch break,” and then another exam in the afternoon. All of this takes place in a span of two hours and thirty minutes, and after that, the student has complete freedom.

Too bad this option is no longer available.

Instead of taking two quarters to prepare for an exam that could make or break a student’s final grade, students now face a Required Quarterly Assessment each quarter that, essentially, makes up for the final-exam factor in their grade. This grade, 10 percent each quarter, is factored into the quarterly grade instead of as a 20-percent semester grade. Even though we don’t get that long exam week to sleep in or come to school late or leave early, we do have a grading system that is now in our favor.

It used to be that students had formatives that counted for between 20-30 percent, summatives that counted between 40 and 60 percent, and homework that counted as 10 percent, as the categories in most classes that made up one’s final quarter grade. This meant that students  who did poorly on even one assignment could find themselves with a very bad grade in a class.

The new grading system is weighted differently due to the RQA that averages out the overall grade so that your grades won’t suffer over one bad grade, and also in a way that you have to put in the work to raise your grade, meaning not just turning in a homework assignment to bump your grade to the next letter. Even if a student does really badly on one test, their grade won’t drop significantly, and if they do all the homework  but miss just one, turning it in won’t raise their grade that much. So be smart, studious, and stay on top of your work so you can get the grade you rightfully earned.

But none of this really matters. You want to know why? Because I’m a senior, waiting for Graduation on May 26, 2017 – that’s why.