Imagine it’s the day of the biggest test of your life. You’ve spent days, weeks, and months studying,  and you feel more than ready. You sit down, holding your pencil with fiery determination; you’re going to ace this test. You begin flipping through the pages. But they never stop. You try to count the questions, but you haven’t learned numbers that large yet.

It’s always a terrible feeling when you’ve spent hours studying for a test, and when you finally take it, you don’t have time to finish. It makes all of your hard work go to waste, all because of something completely out of your control. To me, it doesn’t make sense that assessments often prioritize speed above a thorough understanding of content.

This issue is prevalent throughout Lexington High School, and it was even an issue in middle school. My friends complain about it, I complain about it, and it has made me wonder: why should our ability to answer questions quickly take priority over our ability to answer questions thoughtfully? Is a test really an accurate representation of a student’s skills? With more time, would a student’s performance increase?

I have always found it helpful when tests have few, but hard, questions . This allows students to demonstrate the depth of their understanding of a topic, and usually forces them to apply it in a more realistic situation, especially when it comes to science or math. On the other hand, if tests are longer and have a lot of basic questions, they can be hard to finish and don’t make you effectively use your skills.

You could argue this kind of test helps students prepare for standardized tests or other necessary time-sensitive tasks. However, I don’t think this should be the norm, as it can be harmful to both our grades and our learning in general. Having to rush through tests encourages sloppiness, discourages deep thinking, and doesn’t allow students to go back and check their work, skills important in our future careers and pursuits. There will always be a place for speed-based assessments, but it is crucial to students’ learning to recognize when this is useful and when it is detrimental.