(Throughout the year Lasso Online reporter and freshmen Meredith Kerrigan is providing readers with an insider’s view of what the transition to high school is like. Here she discusses her fellow ninth graders’ views of exam week.)

The ninth grade students experienced their first-ever exam week from January 24 to the 27. During this time they were called upon to study an entire semester’s worth of material and be ready for two-hour long exams during a schedule that allowed them to go home to study after their second exam was over at 12:15.

Overall, the ninth graders had mixed reviews of the exams; some stated they were hard, while others said the exact opposite, that they were easy. One freshman exclaimed, "I’d rather not think about them."

The best part of exam week was, "definitely not having school on Friday," said Rachel Kazman, who claimed she deserved an overall "B" grade on her exams. When asked how much each person studied, many answered, "The weekend before exam week," which prompted Hannah Baumgardner to say, "I could have studied harder."

Of the seven exams taken during the week, some said that P.E was the easiest, but reflecting the conflicting attitudes that ninth graders had about all the tests, freshman Caitlin Kearney stated, "P.E was one of the hardest."

Many of the ninth grade students, with the first of eight exam weeks behind them, claimed that they were dreading studying for four more years of exams, Ellen Shelby even decided to ignore the question saying, "I can’t hear you."

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