The retest up to a 100% policy is a blessing. Unfortunately, a blessing that has come a little late in my high school career, but nonetheless I am glad it is there for students to come. 

I think it will help exceedingly with test anxiety. Test anxiety is something that I am only afflicted with in certain subject areas, but even in that minimized experience, it has caused a lot of distress.

The thought that you have one opportunity to prove your knowledge has been at times insurmountable. 

I have always had somewhat of a complex about teachers summing me up by the sum of my score. At minimum, teachers know us by our name, our student ID, and of course by our grade. It’s not a very demanding relationship at base. 

Of course for teaching to be done successfully, there should be some level of personal connection. Maybe a teacher knows a particular student’s writing style, what part of the essay process they falter on, or knows that so and so generally understands concepts, however often makes small mistakes which result in missing entire questions. Teachers probably generally know these things about us. They might enter a 75% in the grade book, but they know the nuance of it; they don’t reduce us by it. 

But as a student, it’s a perspective often lost. 

You see the large score circled in red at the top and think “Oh God, how am I going to come back from this.” 

I’ve had some bad teachers, some teachers who probably did reduce us by our grades. I had one teacher in middle school who, after our very first test, rounded up those who did poorly, took them outside, and plainly advised to drop the class. 

That’s probably what gave me the complex, but I’ve since learned that the vast majority of teachers are not this way at all. Some are even amazing, and those are the ones that make us want to work hard and make proud. 

Having this second opportunity to fully demonstrate how you’ve improved is something I greatly thank the administration for, and I estimate that it will not only improve grades but also student-teacher morale.