By Rachel McNew — Exams are always a stressful part of a student’s school year. An exam could make or break ones grade. Students work hard all year to maintain the grade they want but this largely weighted test cab either be very beneficial to ones grade, or completely tank it. So yes, there is much stress to be dealt with during exam week.

However, there is one thing student’s love about exam week: open-exam schedule. Students may leave school once their exam has been taken. Also, if a student is exempted, or does not have an exam to take, the student does not have to show up to school that day at all. This is called Open-exams.

There has been a lot of talk this year as to if there would be open-exams, or closed-exams. Not many students would prefer to have closed-exams. Closed-exams means a student must come to school and stay in school even if they do not have an exam to take. So the student would literally sit in the class they would have taken an exam in, and do nothing.

If a student does not come that day, it would be counted as an absence, but if there are open-exams and a student is not permitted to come and does not come, it would not count as an absence. The biggest complaint from students regarding closed-exams is if a student does not have an exam to take, sitting in school for no reason is a huge waste of time.

The school has had open-exams for a while, but it does have a reason to have closed-exams. During open-exams, some students make poor decisions out side of school, but during school hours. The problem with this, is the school gets flack for it and therefore our open-exams are being ruined by just a handful of students that decide to make poor decisions.

The kids who ruin it for the rest of us should be punished, but the school should not punish the entire student body for a handful of student’s actions.

[Updated Aug. 7, 2017: This article has been reformatted for consistency.]