Mid-January. It’s too late to enjoy the new year, yet too early for students to get excited for Valentine’s Day. However, most students know mid-January to be the time for midterms. Midterms are stressful for everyone at the school.

“Midterms can be a tense time because you need to study all the material you learned from September to January in all your classes,” said one Wantagh student. “I set high expectations and want to do well.” Students spent hours studying for them, and the teachers spent hours reviewing for them.

As annoying as midterms are, they are still an important part of schools everywhere. New York State gives the midterms each year to test students’ knowledge of the courses they are taking. Students benefit if they do very well on the midterm. If students do poorly on the midterm, they may not be fit for that course. At the end of midterm exams, the next semester begins, usually with some new courses for the students.

Midterms also showed students if their ways of studying are working. For example, if a student studied for an hour and received a 70 that student might want to study longer, say for two hours. If a student studied for an hour and received a 97, then those study habits are working.

Midterms also serve as the half-way mark for the school year. This tends to result in students studying for very long periods of time. Some students studied four times for three hours. Others studied twelve times for one hour. But either way, a majority of the students studied for the exams. They may not have enjoyed studying, and studying may have interfered with sports or other activities, but they studied nonetheless.

The reason everyone worked so hard to study is because the midterms are the second most crucial exams behind finals, in some courses. In some classes, midterms reflect a third of your overall class average. So it’s no wonder why parents and teachers alike are on students’ backs about studying for them.

Midterms are an important factor in not only Wantagh High School, but high schools all over the world. Without them, students would not know where they stand in a course. They were a nuisance to study for, but studying was worth it once you see a very good grade marked on your exam.