Since the dawn of time, humans have been stressed by tests. This one dreadful emotion is ever present: from a neanderthal facing down a hungry animal to a teenager trying to get by in a class. A big reason for our stress is the fear of failure–you don’t want to fail math, so, you spend all night studying concepts only vaguely familiar to you. And when you do fail that test, all the stress comes crashing down on you until you’re overwhelmed and near hysterics. This is where retakes come to your rescue.

We all deserve second chances. I’m very sure that there are larger forces at play when you fail your math test on two hours of sleep and five hours of unhelpful studying. Failing a test doesn’t mean that you’re dumb, it just means you don’t understand the concepts. Retakes are an opportunity to relearn material at your own pace and work towards a better grade in the class. However, this doesn’t mean Edina High School should have a more lax retake policy: the 75% cap is more than enough.

There’s a reason for that cap: retakes should only be available to students who actually don’t know the course material. The actual process of relearning your course material and meeting with your teacher to go over what you missed is extremely beneficial. A retake afterward would help solidify your learning. You can still go through the process even if you don’t score under 75%, that’s called being a diligent student.

With a more lax policy, students would be compelled to continuously retake tests until they get their desired score. Teachers dislike retakes specifically for this reason, as several popular teacher forums report, such as TeacherDiscovery, the reason being the fact that retakes artificially inflate grades and don’t give teachers an accurate reading of where their class is at by the end of the semester. Furthermore, retakes don’t actually do you any good. Focusing on course material from a previous unit hinders you from learning new material: it’s essentially double the homework.

The cap better reflects your performance in the class. Everyone should have the opportunity to retake up to 75%, it’s a base level which lets the teacher know who’s struggling in the class and who isn’t. Besides, 75% is way better than failing the class.

Even if you’re salty because you got 76%, the score more or less represents your comprehension of the material– maybe you should meet your teacher during flex and go over what you got wrong.

The retake policy as we know it inspires students to do better in class. We don’t need artificial inflation or the ability to retake to 100%; teachers already have processes in place to help us re-learn material and achieve a better score on our next test. We just need to do a better job of utilizing our teachers and the knowledge they have. If you want to know more about a class you’re struggling in, just ask your teacher! I’m sure they’d be more than happy to help.