I was taking an AP Chemistry quiz and saw that my time was running short. I still had five lengthy questions left. I only was able to finish one more question when time ran out.

Half of my class didn’t finish their quizzes either.

Not being able to finish tests and quizzes is a problem for many students. Some students take their time while others feel rushed with a clock over their heads, counting down the time until the period ends.

“I think it is unfair for students to have set time limits on tests,” senior Suliman Hyder said. “It won’t let them think about the questions in depth. It could make a student rush on a question and get it wrong.”

This is part of the problem that some of my friends and I have. If there is a challenging problem, I either become too focused on the question or the clock.

Some students disagree with this and actually like that tests have a set limit.

“In the real world, you always have time limits and deadlines,” junior Max Honermeie said. “You should be used to doing your work on the clock.”

I agree with this for the most part. I have worked a couple of different jobs, and one of them required a project to be completed no later than a certain date.

I feel that this also applies to homework assignments. Homework assignments help prepare a student for their workload in college, and that skill can be transferred into the workforce.

Gene Maeroff of The New York Times wrote an article about a study done at the George W. Wingate High School in Brooklyn, New York. The study focused around students’ performance during different testing times.

One of the tests was a reading test. In the shorter allotment of time, students did worse than when they were given a greater amount of time.

“Jeanne S. Chall, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who is an authority on the teaching of reading, has written of the distinction between the ‘rate’ of comprehension found by timing a test and the ‘power’ of comprehension found by letting a student continue beyond the time limit,” Maeroff reported.

Maybe testing times won’t be changed for a while, but we can still ask our teacher(s) to change the times. We can keep nagging them until change is accomplished.

We can make the testing conditions better for the students that come after us. We can bring about change.