Everyone has experienced the stress of taking a major or minor test. Having to spend all your time studying and the worry of making a bad grade. Parents are always telling you to do well and going to a good college can be important as well, but it can also be overwhelming. Having too much stress is literally bad for your health.

“Stress doesn’t only make us feel awful emotionally,” said Jay Winner, MD, author of Take the Stress Out of Your Life and director of the Stress Management Program for Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, Calif. “It can also exacerbate just about any health condition you can think of.”
 Too much stress on some small animals can lead to problems. Why are humans the exception to be stressed out? Many medical symptoms are caused by stressful life styles even premature death. For an average high school student, what is more stressful than making good grades and passing the next test?

Everyone knows tests are a main part of school to evacuate student learning. But are core tests really good for students with all this stress that is causes them? Perhaps tests shouldn’t be given in such ways; with less big major ones to worry about even straight A students can be relieved.

Plus tests aren’t always the best method of fully understanding a student. They don’t get to a personal level or don’t show the thinking of the student when they answer on the test. But it’s a good way to see their difficulties, mistakes and see where they are in the learning information.

When asked about the stress of taking an important test, Jessie Sloan, a freshman said, “I get stressed when studying.” She then explained how she gets stressed because she has a problem of procrastinating and becomes a crammer. This act is not unusual for many high school students and leads to cramming the night before a test.

Actually, procrastinating is becoming more and more common in recent years. Studies show that about 20% of the population has procrastination problems and it has increased by about quadruple in the past 30 years.

Also, 85-95% of students have similar problems with procrastinating. “ It kind of stresses me out if I don’t get it done,” said Bob Jones student Rebecca Robinson, who talks about her increase in procrastinating in current school years compared to older ones.

Some schools are actually evaluating students with out standardized tests. One interesting way is a portfolio, to see what the students have learned, in a way of gathering various information items in the portfolio like an artistic person to have art and such, or a writing major to have their works in it. And with a more personalized evaluation of the individual student, it is fixing some of the major problems of just test scores.

Major tests stress many students out, especially ones who procrastinate on studying. Although testing has its benefits, there are alternate ways of actually testing a student’s ability. So is handing out a test booklet and answer sheet really good for students?