For the first time since 2019, Riverdale students will face March exams next week. Except for seniors, who experienced the exams as ninth graders, this year’s exams will be the first for many Upper School students. The exams weigh heavily on the shoulders of many Riverdale students once February begins. With the exams canceled over the past two years, many Riverdale students are unfamiliar with the process of preparing for and taking them, so what can they expect?
Exams bring many different emotions to students: the fear of blanking, the excitement of getting a problem right, and the desire to get a near-perfect score. Students at Riverdale tend to hold themselves to high standards, and the addition of the exams exacerbates the already stressful school year. Although the exams this year are only worth up to 10% of a student’s grade, many students still seem anxious. The idea of the exams seems to scare students more than the reality of them.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit New York in March 2020, Riverdale, along with many other independent schools in New York City, canceled exams. Administrators decided the extra pressure was not needed in the middle of a raging pandemic, and teachers needed more time to teach their classes online. The exams were likewise canceled in Spring 2021.
Ninth-grader Phoebe Kalikow, who has two older siblings who attend or have attended Riverdale, said, “My sisters said it really helped that the exams were canceled because it just took off a lot of pressure.” When her siblings did take the exams in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, they spent all of Presidents’ Day weekend studying.
The exams, which take place from March 7-9, are in only three out of the five subjects at Riverdale: science, foreign language, and math. Teachers try to strike a delicate balance between making sure the tests do not induce too much stress and making sure they have enough weight to motivate students to work hard and prepare.
As students prepare for their exams, it’s important to keep in mind their value and purpose. Ms. Anne Nadecki, an Upper School math teacher who has been working at Riverdale for the past 14 years, explained, “The exams are a good opportunity for my students to stop and look at everything we have done this year and put it all together. Since the exams are cumulative, the students have to use everything they have learned throughout the year.”
Senior Lauren Gilman thinks that “the exams are a good way to prepare Riverdale students for the assessment style we will experience in college.” Upper School English teacher Dr. Jeffrey Edwards agrees with Gilman: “The exams allow teachers to see what each student is successfully grasping and effectively implementing.” Although Dr. Edwards enjoys the freedom of not being tied down by the March exams as a humanities teacher, he also thinks exams are an important part of learning.
When asked about the future and purpose of March exams at Riverdale, Mr. Tom Taylor, the Head of the Upper School, explained, “The testing is a pause in the school year that allows students to bring everything together to create a lasting understanding of broad concepts in their classes.” Mr. Taylor anticipates that later this spring, the school will have a large debrief on the future of the exams to discuss how the exams help students and what the exams fall short of achieving.
Riverdale also might be approaching a time when different kinds of testing will be implemented, like projects or presentations. This year, teachers were given the option to opt out of a traditional written exam and instead to give a different type of large, cumulative assessment. This can be a challenge, however, since all the sections of a course must give the same large assessment, meaning different teachers of the course have to agree on what the project will be and how it will be done. At the end of the day, even though students don’t love the stress March exams provoke, they only impact grades minimally, serve as a learning tool, and provide valuable training for students’ future. With all this taken into consideration, Riverdale may well decide the exams are here to stay.
