8th Grade Exams

When I started teaching 8th grade last year, I was told that we give second semester exams at the end of the school year. The intent was to give the students the "exam experience" before it "really counted" toward their high school grade. Since the curriculum changed, the exam needed to change, and so I re-wrote the final exams for English Language Arts and Social Studies to reflect the standards and benchmarks from our second semester units.

Since they were final exams, they were, of course, given as late as possible in the school year: the last two days of the week before school let out. No new materials was to be covered the three days before the exams; instead, those were to be review days. That gave us teachers the weekend to grade all the exams and have report card grades and comments in by 8:00 Monday morning.

Three weeks before the exams, students started to get stressed. There were constant questions about what would be on the exam, what kind of questions would there be, how should they study? I consulted with my high school colleagues and put together a study guide modeled after theirs and handed it out two weeks before the exam. We offered study tips during classes and Advisory. One week before, we started review activities. The stress level rose higher and higher.

On the days of the exams, students sat in homerooms and focused for an hour and a half on each subject. The MS principal decided that extra time was available for any student who needed it, up to an extra 30 minutes. Despite the extra time, nerves were on edge.

I spent about 16 hours grading the 82 exams. I got it done, but it wasn't a very fun weekend.

Results? In general, the students earned what I thought they would have earned: A students got A's or high B's and C students got C's or high D's. When I put the grades in the gradebook (15% of their total semester grade), students' grades shifted by 1-2% or not at all.

I have to wonder: was it worth it? It's a pretty stressful way to end the school year and their middle school careers. It pulled very few grades up, and pulled some kids' grades down to the next level. If we actually wanted to mimic high school exams to give students the "exam experience", then why didn't we have exams in the gym and why did they only last an hour and a half instead of two hours and why did they get extra time?

I am going to bring this up to my Grade 8 team and MS principal. I would like to hear from the high school teachers: Do they think 9th graders were better prepared for their winter exams because they had taken 8th grade exams? If the reason we are doing 8th grade exams isn't actually accomplishing its purpose, then I recommend we stop doing them. I would rather spend that week celebrating the work we've done all year, choosing the Best Book of the Year, and building our summer reading list from book recommendations of peers.

Do you give 8th grade exams at your school? If so, do you think the benefits outweigh the detriments?