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by lotsofpulp 1114 days ago
I grew up in ~6 different states in 9 schools in the US during the 1990s and 2000s, and we did not have final exams from Kindergarten through 12th grade, other than Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

You typically take tests at various points in time during the school year up to 12th grade, but entire course year tests labeled as "exams" did not happen until university, or AP exams if you took AP courses in high school.

Exam is definitely used in American English, though.
1 comments
kjs3 1114 days ago
I had final exams in the US, in 2 different states, in both public and private schools. I have 2 kids, and 16-odd neices and nephews in 5 states, from 2nd to 12th grade in both public and private schools. Everyone talked about final exams. I think they get 'officially' called other things; in my state they're called Milestone Assessments, but they sure sound like a final exam to me.

"Georgia Milestones is a single assessment system that consists of end-of-grade measures in English language arts and mathematics in grades 3-8, end-of-grade measures in science in grades 5 and 8, end-of-grade measure in social studies in grade 8, and end-of-course measures for specified high school courses."

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lotsofpulp 1114 days ago
Interesting. I did not go to school in Georgia, but various states in the Midwest and Northeast, and I do not recall any year end cumulative test. If I recall, we got a grade each quarter (or half) and then that was averaged for the final grade.
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kjs3 1114 days ago
Maybe it's a regional thing. I definitely had cumulative final exams in GA & FL in the 70s and early 80s. The new generation are in the South and West, and while I don't know all the details of each child's school, the wailing and gnashing of teeth about 'final exams' is consistent across all of them[1]. Since we don't really have national standards in the US for such things, it's shouldn't be a surprise that there could be differences in how grades are handled.

[1] To be fair, the kids could just be using 'exam' and interchangeably with 'test' and it isn't a capstone for the year. But that still belies the assertion that 'exam' isn't used much in the US.

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