SKYLER ROSSNews Editor

Final exams are an extremely important part of any class in high school. According to History De-partment Head Dr. Forbes, the intended purpose of finals is to assess the level of mastery of the content of the course.

However, currently Westhill seniors are exempt from final ex-ams if they have an A or A- aver-age for the year before taking the exam. Such a practice ought to be expanded to incorporate all classes and all grades.

If a student has an A or A- av-erage without the final, he or she must have mastered the course contents. Otherwise, the student would not have achieved such a high grade. So the purpose of the final, to assess the level of knowl-edge of the course, has already been accomplished. The student worked hard for those grades. To make him or her take a final is pointless and accomplishes nothing, as the student obviously knows an above-average amount of material.

Furthermore, if the student has an A or A- grade, the final would have absolutely no effect on his or her final grade for the year.

For example, if a student has

a 94 average without the final exam, he or she would need to get below a 79 percent on the final in order to drop his or her grade at all. A 78 percent would earn him or her an A-. And it is highly un-likely that a student with an A for the year will get a 78, because he or she obviously knows the con-tent of the course, as previously established.

The biggest argument against this point of view is that an ex-emption from finals is a “senior privilege,” and that after four years of hard work, seniors with A averages deserve the exemption. However, this is an illegitimate argument.

“I understand that it is a senior privilege,” sophomore Meredith Outlaw said. “But if any student has put in hard work all year, that student deserves the same privi-lege as well.”

Seniors do get senioritis to-ward the end of the school year and no longer want to put any ef-fort into their schoolwork. But se-nioritis is highly contagious, and all students, regardless of grade level, get it.

To exempt seniors for simply being seniors is ridiculous, and there is no legitimate reason that this policy should not be expanded to incorporate all grades.

At Westhill, seniors are exempt from finals in any class in which they have maintained an A or A- average throughout the year. Should freshmen, sophomores, and juniors be given the same privilege?

11ViewpointExtending a senior privilege

JAMES FORDEStaff Writer

As a graduating senior, I can tell you first-hand that we aren’t given much more leeway than the average student. I’m not mad about this. In fact, knowing the shenani-gans that my friends get into, it’s a good call by the administration.

The one school-sanctioned se-nior perk we DO get, though, is the privilege to be exempt from finals in any class in which we have a 90 average or better. This academic leniency acts not only as a reward for those who pull through the end of their senior year, but as a mo-tivation to keep interest in school during a time when most seniors have tunnel vision only for their college of choice.

Opening this opportunity to underclassmen would not only lead to end-of-the-year chaos, but it would also undermine one of the last senior privileges that we have left. Allow me to explain.

The privilege of being exempt from finals is essentially a bribe from the school. It is no secret that as the clock counts down to gradu-ation, seniors become exponen-tially less inclined to do work. The bribe is that if we continue to do work and pay attention in class we will get an extra week at the end of

the year all to ourselves.When you offer this deal to

students who are not graduating, the problem is that you are essen-tially telling them that you don’t expect them to do work, so you have to bribe them as well.

Seniors will be seniors, and they are going to be lazy regard-less, but exempting underclassmen from finals may take students that otherwise treat the last weeks of school as serious learning time and make them feel like they should HAVE to be bribed to do work

“If it weren’t for finals, I would probably stop trying during the last few weeks of school,” ju-nior Caitie McCafferty said.

As well as a review of all the information students already know, finals also often prompt students to study hard and learn more than they would have otherwise. This makes finals a critical time for in-formation absorption amongst the underclassmen.

On a final note, not forcing un-derclassmen to take finals not only removes a period of learning at the end of the year, but also takes away that last senior right they have to look forward to. Not forcing un-derclassmen to hit the books until the end of the year would be noth-ing but a disservice to them, and we don’t want to do that, do we?

AlAnA KAsindorf / Photo Editor

YES38%NO62%

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;(Out of 200 students)

Poll conducted by Keben Perez And AnnA schlessinger