Once again that time of year comes where it seems every teacher tries to re-shove every lesson you ever learn down your throat.

Mostly consisting of long review packets and tiring work trying to prepare you for, you guessed it, AIMS.

AIMS is Arizona’s standardized test that high schoolers must take and pass in order to graduate.

You can get a 100 percent in every class all four years of your high school career but if you don’t get to at least “Meets” on AIMS then you can’t graduate.

In a way everything you have learned throughout the year doesn’t really matter as long as you pass AIMS. Of course everything you have learned is what’s preparing you for AIMS but it’s hard to remember something you’ve learned months ago.

This is why there are extremely stressful few weeks before AIMS where teachers try to cram everything we have ever learned back into our heads, which honestly only makes us panic more causing us to be more likely to make a mistake.

AIMS doesn’t test your ability and intelligence of a subject but rather your ability to take a test. Just because a student may pass AIMS it doesn’t mean they have a complete understanding of the subject or even know how to apply it in their daily life.

Being able to pass a test is different than being able to use common sense to survive out in the real world.

There shouldn’t be one test that determines whether or not we will be walking in a cap and gown or living on the side of McDonalds. The fact that students know this just adds unwanted stress to a student already striving for success.

This makes passing AIMS become less of a serious test and more of a chore that students will become frustrated with, ending in guesses for most of the questions just to get it over with.

All this pressure is placed on the students over one test when in reality your progress as an individual and your final score in that class is what should determine your graduation.

There should be weekly or biweekly tests about that one lesson learned and at the end of the year all your scores are averaged out and if you pass you graduate.

You shouldn’t have to retake AIMS to graduate because you get test anxiety or were just having a bad day.

One day and one test can’t determine your overall intelligence for the entire year.

True intelligence is not what you already know but what you have learned from your mistakes.