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What Grinds Our Gears: Two+ midterms

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What do ‘midterm exams’ really mean in a word with more than one midterm exam?

Peak Web
Peak Web
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On the problem of multiple midterm exams

By: Jerrica Zabala, SFU Student

Course selection week! The best time of the semester — when we’re all absolutely drowning in school work. I gloss over prospective course syllabi and suddenly find myself in the shits; I’ve just found out the beloved required course for my degree has midterm exams . . . Plural. This is, of course, absurd. By definition, midterm means halfway. There can’t be more than one halfway point in the term. So then how can there be more than one midterm exam!?

Seeing the course syllabus on the SFU website already gives me anxiety. How are you gonna make me write more than two tests and call it “midterms”? Here, let’s make it easier for you. “Mid” is shorthand for “middle.” “Middle-term” exam. Feeling pretty silly having two or more of them now, aren’t you? 

The only acceptable definition of multiple midterms would have to be in the MIDDLE of TWO terms. Unless I’m pursuing TWO degrees at TWO different universities, I should not be taking TWO MIDDLE term exams.

Do you know how embarrassing it is to have two midterms? Especially during a conversation when your friends ask, “What do you mean you have a midterm? The semester is done in three weeks.” Like what is that about? Oh, and why the hell are you giving out a “midterm” exam two weeks after the semester has started? I digress. 

You want students to take your class with minimal test anxiety? HumDon’t call it a “midterm exam,” just call them unit tests. Midterms are exactly what it describes. Mid. It may be the most insignificant things students complain about during our time at SFU, but don’t fucking push me on it.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024