Here is how our readers responded:

No – “Final exams are not needed to prove a student’s intelligence in a subject. Throughout the year, students are given tests and quizzes which test their knowledge on the unit or section learned. Tests and quizzes do enough to measure the students’ strengths and weaknesses. Teachers should be able to use that as feedback on what they need to do with said student(s). Final exams, put pressure on the students to cram everything they have learned in one semester (or less) onto a test that can either benefit their grade or hurt it deeply.”

Yes – “I think the work that a student does over the course of a semester is reflective of the student’s proficiency in the subject.”

No – “Test-taking in itself is a skill. I’ve seen students who are very proficient and intelligent in a certain subject but their scores never reflect that intelligence. It’s purely because they aren’t good test-takers. Tests in themselves do not measure intelligence or proficiency in a subject. The creator of standardized testing himself said that his tests were “too crude to be used and should be abandoned.” Although I don’t have a solution to assessing subject proficiency I know current day tests are not the solution and require serious innovation. If we can evolve and car and a cellphone, I feel it is our responsibility to evolve the education system.”

Yes – “Relearning is necessary to maintain learning. Also, in life, we are often measured for how much we have learned over time, and if we have a good habit of relearning in school, this helps us later in life with achievement (i.e., my college roommate always failed her college-level exams, and she believes this was because she was rewarded in high school for A’s in class by NOT having to take the class final. She never learned how to take a test on a grand scale.)”

No – “A student’s proficiency in a subject is shown through the overall grade of the class and how well they are performing in that class. Finals only cause stress and students to have more anxiety than needed when they’ve shown their proficiency in the class throughout the semester. And the massive test isn’t going to prove how well a student understands a subject, especially considering that each student is different and some are worse at taking tests than others.”

Yes – “As long as the content on the test corresponds with the material learned over the semester, final exams are an effective way to test whether students retained the information they’ve learned.”

No – “They are but at the same time, they are not. The point of grades is to reflect how much we the students know, and if we only focus and rely on the final exams to tell us our knowledge on a class, then what’s the point of even having other grades if the final is going to be the main point of proficiency in a subject. A lot of people including me have a very hard and stressful time when the finals are approaching, not just because we have to focus on other classes work too, but at the same time, it’s a lot of stress put on us to study for multiple classes about everything we’ve ever learned because all we are focusing on is remembering things like questions and answers just to forget them later instead of actually caring to learn about them because a grades and points are made to be more important than actual desire to learn. Not to mention that I personally know a ton of people that pull all-nighters studying just to break down in tears the next day because of the huge amounts of stress that are put upon them. I think finals should be made optional for students whose grades are higher than a C since first of all can be a good motivation to keep higher grades throughout the semester and the rest can have the chance to better their grades and build them up. (But if they bring let’s say D to an F it’s excused and not counted..) etc..”