For many students, the opportunity to be able to revise tests and quizzes would benefit learning because various factors such as stress, sleep deprivation from studying all night or even having the occasional brain lapse can impact how well they score on tests. If a student received a score that doesn’t accurately reflect their acquired knowledge and skills, they should be allowed retakes in order to prove that they do fully understand the material. 

In the 2020 Education Week article “Why Should We Allow Students to Retake Assessments?”, the idea of assessment retakes highlights the importance of allowing students a second chance to demonstrate their mastery. When students are given the opportunity to retake assessments, which typically contribute to a high percentage of their overall grade, they are more likely to achieve a higher grade as they can see where they need to improve and work on those problems. 

However, many teachers around the nation are hesitant to give retakes due to numerous reasons. Some say they don’t have time to schedule a retake for students or to create an alternate retake test. Others believe that if you give students a second chance, you are not preparing them for real life where second chances are not as frequent. While this argument is valid, during their academic careers in high school, students should be rewarded for learning from their mistakes by getting a boost in their grades because they worked hard to improve their weaknesses.

While even without points for revisions it would be ideal for students to take the initiative to review their missed questions and seek extra help in the areas they struggle in to better them understand what they got wrong, applying what they learned from those mistakes into revisions would be an extra benefit.

Students also need to meet their teachers halfway by taking the responsibility to understand their mistakes by reviewing the questions they missed and using their mistakes as the next step in the learning journey, whether or not revisions are offered. 

It is important to mention that the scores and grades students receive on tests and quizzes do not always equal how good of a student they are or even how intelligent they are, even if this fact can be hard to accept. Grades students earn on tests and quizzes are only a mere reflection of how well they performed on that day, and are not always an accurate reflection of their knowledge in that subject matter. When students can let go of the fact that grades are the only one determining factor of their success, they can truly begin to dive deeper into their learning by accepting failure as a step in the process of gaining success. 

According to a 2019 article by Edutopia, “Allowing Test Retakes – Without Getting Gamed,” that included educational and learning strategies, mastery quizzes and reflective test corrections are two methods they highlight that could prove to be useful in classrooms around the nation. Mastery quizzes include creating a small assessment solely based on the questions that a high percentage of students got wrong while reflective test corrections can include a survey or even a questionnaire that asks students to explain why they got a certain question wrong and show the correct way of approaching and tackling the problem at hand. 

When students get the opportunity to reinforce their weak spots in certain areas of a subject through methods such as these, they can be more engaged in their learning and begin taking greater strides towards success.