“You can’t study for English exams.” This mantra fills the school during exam week, and there’s a valid reason: the county-wide exams aren’t related to what students study in class throughout the semester.

Montgomery County stopped allowing individual schools to write their own English exams over ten years ago, causing exams to become more general and irrelevant to what students learn in class.

Although it makes sense for the county to try to standardize the curriculum by providing a one semester exam for all schools, the exam should reflect more precisely what students learn throughout the semester.

The county exam is based on curriculum objectives rather than on the specific texts that students have studied.

English resource teacher Beth Rockwell would prefer to return to the old system. Teachers know the material they’ve covered and are therefore more capable than the county of writing relevant exams, she said.

English teachers all use different teaching materials with their students. Students spend an entire semester reading, analyzing and taking quizzes on certain books assigned by their teacher. Yet the semester exam doesn’t pose any questions directly about these books.

Many students, like senior Coleman Quimby, think the exams hardly relate to what they study in class. The English exams for different grades test on virtually identical information, even though students learn new material every year. It feels like you’re taking the same test every year, Quimby said.

Students usually don’t see the type of material that will be on the exam until the day they get the review packet; often, they are surprised by new concepts, such as grammar, that their teachers never touch on. Also, review packets are often vague and don’t include practice questions.

Students do mostly writing, not multiple choice, in graded assignments throughout the semester. And yet, the exams include a lot of multiple choice questions and very little writing. Students are thus unable to sufficiently exhibit their writing skills.

County exams don’t adequately reflect students’ understanding of the material taught in a semester of English class. The exams test material that is too broad and unrelated to what students learn. While standardization is important, the county’s one-size-fits-all English exam policy certainly has its flaws.