Alas! The worst has yet again arrived at Cornell University: prelim season. From now until the last day of the semester, Cornellians will trudge their way through exam after exam, week after week, just to make it to summer break. Why? How? The unfortunate answer is Cornell’s assessment system: an endless, chaotic, demanding system characterized by a never-ending cycle of stress and mountains of time spent cramming.
It is no secret that Cornellians always seem to be studying for something. As it turns out, many Cornell classes have as many as four prelims per semester. Even those with only two still contribute to an overwhelming workload. Take the average five-class schedule — two classes might have four prelims each while another two have two each, all alongside one essay-based class. That adds up to 12 prelims in just a single semester! This is not just ludicrous but unsustainable. We need a new system, or rather, an old one. Cornell, it’s time to rethink your approach: We need a midterm week.
A midterm week would act as a miniature finals week, where each class would have an exam set to take place within one week. Depending on the course, the assessment could take the form of a sit-down exam or a take-home exam or a paper. Under this model, each class would have only two examinations for the semester: the midterm and the final.
Professors may argue that more preliminary exams are better for students; that way, their grade for the class doesn’t hinge on just two exams, and that one bad day won’t ruin them for a semester. This line of reasoning isn’t completely off, it identifies the problem, but the solution is way off base. Exams should not be the dominant force in determining student success, prelims or no prelims. I am in a chemistry class where the weekly problem set — where I actually learn the material — is worth a mere five percent of my total grade. Meanwhile, the exams, which prioritize high-stakes memorization over long-term understanding, count for the majority of my final grade. Why is that?
We already know that there are better ways to measure mastery aside from constant test taking such as completing graded problem sets, essays or projects. These are not meant to completely replace tests, but to supplement them and to account for a larger section of a student’s final grade.
Some students might argue that a midterm week would create an intense, condensed period of stress that may be too much to handle. Obviously part of this is likely preference, but why should students be forced to endure sustained stress all semester long instead? A number of scholars and health organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the American Psychological Association consistently show that prolonged, chronic stress (lasting a whole semester, perhaps) is far more harmful to physical and mental health than short-term, high-intensity pressure due to hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, or the endocrine pathway which regulates stress and cortisol production, dysfunction.
Besides, prelim exams already cluster together. Anyone who has been at Cornell long enough knows about the inevitable three-prelim-week. A midterm week wouldn’t necessarily increase exam overlap, it would just formalize the structure, making our schedules more predictable and less chaotic.
At the end of the day, nobody likes tests. Students hate taking them. Professors and teaching assistants hate grading them. And yet, despite overwhelming evidence that they create an environment of competitiveness amongst students, encourage cramming and fuel an obsessive culture over grades instead of learning for the sake of long-term information retention, they remain a staple of the American university, and will likely continue to be the largest metric by which the knowledge obtained by students might be assessed.
This system also introduces unnecessary logistical problems — overlapping exam schedules, accessibility issues for students with SDS accommodations and professors scrambling to reserve testing spaces.
In my own experience, my peers seem more concerned with acing their exams than understanding their coursework. This isn’t just sad — it’s dangerous for society at large.
I recognize that standardized testing isn’t going anywhere. Exams have and will continue to play a role in higher education. But a midterm week would offer an opportunity for us to rethink how we structure learning at Cornell.
Will stress and anxiety still exist with a midterm week? Absolutely. Cornell and universities in general are pressure cookers by nature. But the goal isn’t to eliminate stress altogether — the goal is to reduce the culture of stress, which has been carefully cultivated and refined after years of continuous assessments.
But it’s time to change that and a midterm week, although not the final solution, is a step in the right direction. The question isn’t whether Cornell students can handle the stress of a constant onslaught of prelims — we know we can. The question is whether Cornell is willing to prioritize student well-being and education over institutional optics and perceived rigor.
Sophie Gross is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her fortnightly column Observing aims to analyze popular and academic culture at Cornell in an attempt to understand current social and political trends sweeping the country. She can be reached at sgross@cornellsun.com.
