According to a recent survey distributed by The Forest Scout, 80% of the 244 Lake Forest High School students who took the survey distributed by email would prefer to have Final Exams scheduled before the holiday break. This, of course, makes sense considering that LFHS will be adopting the popular before-break placement in the 2018-19 school year. Still, however, the Final Exams that are happening this week have forced students to recall a multitude of information in January that may have been taught as early as August.

In addition to the aforementioned statistic, a vast majority of LFHS students agree that junior year (64.5%) encompasses the most difficult Final Exam experience, followed by freshman (16.7%) year. The fact that challenging AP-level coursework often begins in 11th grade–inlcuding difficult classes like AP-US History and AP-Language–could be the impetus for this feeling while the first-time experience of freshman year finals could be spurring the vote for 9th graders. While junior year ranks supreme in terms of grade difficulty, a unanimous number of students agree that essay tests are the most strenuous when it comes to test style. Though English exams are traditionally in essay format at LFHS, some other advanced or honors-level social sciences classes use the format as well. Interestingly enough, though, Math Analysis-Honors was voted as the most difficult non-AP-style exam while a variety of votes also came in for an assortment of science courses like Chemistry, Biology, and Physics, while Spanish and Latin received votes as well.

When prompted to recall the best place for studying inside the building, most students responded with the LFHS library–albeit in various areas of the quiet, secluded area–while some mentioned that the English Resource Center, with its growing popularity in the Publick Room, also functions as a calming place to memorize information.

As any student would expect, students responded to the question of “what is the hardest part about studying for Final Exams?” rather simply. Various iterations of staying focused was the most popular answer, while knowing what to study and the process of spreading out the workload intelligently were also popular.