A necessary feature of this program is the opportunity for students to take retests freely. We allow quizzes to be taken and retaken at any time during the day (see Chemistry Quiz Rules) however examinations are more difficult to schedule. We do reserve every Tuesday afternoon after school for make-up or repeat examinations.

Except in those few cases where examinations are labeled with an [S], the new exam grade completely replaces the prior grade. Exams labeled with an [S] are really double exams and the student has the choice of taking the first grade twice or repeating the exam. The first grade, however, remains, whatever the student chooses.

One of the difficulties of running this program is that the teacher needs at least a dozen interchangeable exams for every subject instead of, perhaps, just one or two. Over the years, a mature program will have developed large numbers of tests, but curriculum changes will make many of these out of date and no longer usable. However since our tests are stored in computers, many are easily modified and can readily be brought up to date. We believe that it is essential that our curriculum not be confined to the masses of tests we already have. As soon as a curricular change is made, existing tests are updated as soon as possible to insure enough tests will be available for all of the retakes.

Since most tests may be retaken, some students will rely on successful retakes rather than preparing properly for the first test. This is an extremely poor idea, since these students will intentionally fall well behind the flow of ideas in the course. It is not efficient to take tests on subjects long after the experiments upon which they are based. Such students experience considerable frustration and eventually do poorly or learn to make limited use of make-up tests. Although we have tried to reduce pressure on students, these policies have succeeded in increasing stress levels when students use them inappropriately.

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