As students cram in last minute information and take down last moment notes, the anxiousness for midterms becomes more real; however, because of differing teacher preferences, some students have more midterms to prepare for than others.

Students hope to get passable grades on their midterms because without them, their grade could drop by a whole letter grade.

“It’s a more significant test because it’s testing half a year, not just a chapter or unit,” explained assistant principal Mel Laughton.

Though many students do well on midterms, it’s no secret that numerous people in the school have strong feelings about these exams.

“I hate them,” senior Evan Greenwald said. “It’s extremely stressful but it’s all about proper time management.”

Like many students, a few teachers do not agree with the idea of midterms.

“It’s concerning to me that it’s simply a large test on your second term and it’s difficult to make up,” history teacher Amelia Davis said. “I think it’s important to learn how to prepare and take a large assessment, and if midterms were calculated differently I would have them.”

Davis has never had midterms throughout her years she has worked at Algonquin, but she has mid-year check-ins for her AP Psych class that does not follow the midterms schedule.

English teacher Seth Czarnecki feels similarly to Davis.

“I don’t give midterms for my freshman because the information is more skilled based which we will be working on the rest of the year and we have finals for that,” Czarnecki said.

Many teachers and students wouldn’t mind midterms as much if the grades were calculated differently.

“We over prepare for midterms and I get stressed and overwhelmed,”  junior Sara Stasaitis said.

While a good portion of the social studies and English departments do not have midterms, many other departments do.

“I have math, English, and Spanish midterms,” junior Mary Rousseau said.

Spanish teacher Janette Araya believes midterms are a valuable assessment.

“All of the Spanish department have midterms,” Araya explained. “I think it’s a good practice that cover a lot of the material to prepare them for college.”

Also more than half of the math department has midterms as well, including math teacher Eileen Palmer. For the last seven years she has been assessing the content of the first half of the year with midterms.

“I feel like if you don’t give a midterm by the end of the year, students will forget what they learned,” Palmer explained.

At the end of the day midterms have become a tradition at Algonquin. Every year around this time, an abundant amount of students try to absorb any last information that will help them score high on their midyear assessment.

“But the benefit is that, especially for freshmen, we can build the skills without having a large interruption,” Czarnecki explains. “Students can learn that it’s [midterms] a long lesson but a valuable one.”