Two months of non-stop testing. This is the current state of post-Spring Break, and it beats students to a pulp. While a short break is beneficial, Spring Break is so long that it breaks the momentum students need to carry through finals season, and replaces it with summer dreams. This rigorous post-Spring Break schedule includes intense EOCs and AP tests, an increased pace of learning in classes, and loss of focus as summer quickly approaches.
As the weeks creep by and summer seems more and more an achievable goal, EOCs and AP Testing also become a problem for students. These tests, because of their importance to both the students and the school, take a great deal of time to prepare for and put a lot of pressure on high schoolers. For students, tests such as these can have negative consequences for their grades. In fact, not doing well could mean losing credit for the class even if the students have demonstrated they knew the content throughout the year. In addition, teachers are put under the limelight since the results of their students’ EOCs have been seen to directly impact their pay for the next year
After Spring Break learning for students usually speeds up as teachers work to reach their end-of-the-year teaching goals. Because of this, tests become more frequent and the end of the year projects are given to students who are already stressed. With less time to learn, and extra grades going in means worse grades by the end of the semester.
As summer approaches, teenagers tend to lose focus of the importance of finishing out the year. According to the Washington Post, 83 percent of teenagers report school is “a somewhat or significant source of stress.” This fact makes it is easy to see how as the end of the year causes students overwhelming stress. This makes students prone to calling it quits too early and ruining all their pre-Spring Break work.
For students, the time after Spring Break should be used to ensure their grades are where they want them to be. However, to accomplish this, high school students must stay sharp and be aware of all the pitfalls they could fall into as the school year comes to a close.