Anisha Moran

May 30, 2019

Example Essay
HHHP
Change Needs to be Made

She got her test back today. We studied for so long and she had finally got it by the end. I

told her to just stay calm and be confident in the material, as I do before every test, in hope that it

will change the outcome somewhat. I walked in the house at six p.m. and put the mail down on

the counter and asked her to come down. She came down slowly, staring at the floor and I knew

what was coming. She handed me the test with the scantron sheet attached and I saw the big 67

circled in red next to her name, with not a single page without red ink. I looked it over and I was

at loss for words.. The questions I was looking at were those that shouldn’t be expected by a

sophomore to get right. Especially not with only having 40 minutes to take the test. I told her it

was going to be ok and that it was nothing to worry about, but she didn't see it that way. This was

the fourth test she had gotten back this month with this similar grade. This was outrageous. She

had been working so hard just to get these types of results. She had been stressing herself out for

weeks, going to bed at almost 11, and practically falling asleep at the kitchen table because she

needed my help with her labs. She was fully consumed by the study of chemistry, just for it to

tell her she wasn’t good enough. According to a study done at NYU, “Nearly half (49%) of all

students reported feeling a great deal of stress on a daily basis and 31 percent reported feeling

somewhat stressed. Females reported significantly higher levels of stress than males (60% vs.

41%). Grades, homework, and preparing for college were the greatest sources of stress for both

genders. A substantial minority, 26 percent of participants, reported symptoms of depression at a

clinically significant level.”

 I had a surgery today. It took 3 hours longer than it should of. I stood their starting for the

first one and a half because what I had planned to do I realized wouldn’t work. It was probably

one of the most important surgeries I have done in a while. Her hand was significantly distorted,

to say the least, and because it took so long to fix it, I was late to picking her up at school. When

she got in the car, she seemed not right. I told her that the surgery went longer than expected and

I was sorry for being late. She said that it was fine, and she figured that since I didn’t reply to her

texts when I said that I would, as she was walking to the bus this morning. On the way home, I

asked her about her day. “It was good,” she said. Typical answer. Then after asking like six

follow up questions, I figured out that she got a 91 on a math test and that she has another chem

quiz tomorrow and a test the next Monday. I didn’t understand. She literally had one two days

ago, and now she has another quiz and a test. I can’t believe it; I mean it makes sense now why

she was stressed. She never gets a break. She works and works and works and never gets

rewarded. It’s one thing to work day and night and then get a grade that makes it all worth it. It's

one thing to spend 3 hours in a surgery that should’ve taken one and then finish with the patient

being able to become nothing but better. But she doesn’t get that satisfaction. She works and

works and works and gets slapped in the face with “not good enough” everytime a new graded

assessment lands on her desk. She might as well be in medical school at the rate she she is

working. According to the Washington Post, “teens report that stress is having an impact on their

performance at home, work and school.” Their self-reported stress levels were higher than that

reported by adults.”

The stress that students feel nowadays is way higher than in the past. Now, students have

so much pressure on themselves to be outstanding students with impeccable grades, get amazing

grades on standardized tests, be more than adequate athletes, be apart of community activities,
have a job, eat 3 meals a day, have an avid social life, get 8 hours of sleep each night, and make

their resumes nothing but perfect. They think that these pressures come from their parents and

that is what they don’t get. We as parents would choose your mental health to be better than your

grades any day. All we want is for our kids to be happy, no matter what it is. We don’t care

whether you are at the bottom or the top of your class, as long as you are trying your best and

you are happy. Now, I will agree that schools and teachers do admit some stress on students with

their piling on of homework and rushing with exams and all that, I get that. The way that schools

prepare kids for the future is doing nothing but practically asking them to be stressed. They are

being reminded everyday of the expectations that are put on them and that is what makes

teenagers get hard on themselves. They feel as if they need to choose between a social life, good

mental health, and an A. But that isn’t the case. Teenagers aren’t expected to do anything except

to try their best. They are expected to put in the effort and do the best they can, as long as they do

that, parents would be more than happy.

One of the main causes of student’s stress these days come from grades. Schools

nowadays are getting really stingy with their grading. It seems that as the school year progresses,

and also as students move through grades, teachers decide that more and more things need to be

graded. I think it should be the opposite. Students should be graded on certain assignments and

certain assignments only. Students now are having little things like homework be graded on

accuracy rather than completion and it isn’t ok. And not only it is now graded on accuracy, it

also contributes to, in some cases, contributes to almost 20% of their final grades. These types of

changes are those that cause students stress levels to increase because they are spreading

themselves too thin to get good grades on everything, even the little things. They are stressing

over their nightly homework that are worth ten points rather than their tests and quizzes worth
fifty or sixty points. This causes teenager’s grades to eventually deteriorate because since they

are spread so thin, they aren’t. Teenagers nowadays are spread so thin that they can’t even

differentiate what grades are more important than others now since they think that everything is

at the same level of significance and value.

 Works Cited

"NYU Study Examines Top High School Students' Stress and Coping Mechanisms."

NYU, www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2015/august/nyu-study-examines-top-

high-school-students-stress-and-coping-mechanisms.html.

"Stressed-Out Teens, with School a Main Cause." Washington Post,

www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/stressed-out-teens-with-school-a-

main-cause/2014/02/14/d3b8ab56-9425-11e3-84e1-

27626c5ef5fb_story.html?utm_term=.fhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-

science/stressed-out-teens-with-school-a-main-cause/2014/02/14/d3b8ab56-9425-11e3-

84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html?utm_term=.f6db690678e16db690678e1.