Midterms: How They’re Made and Why They’re Taken

For first-year students, midterms mark one of the first formal assessments of their Harvard College career. “It felt a little bit daunting or scary just because I never took a college—Harvard College—midterm, and I didn’t know what to expect,” Sarah Zhang ’29 told the Independent.

The first major round of exams for Harvard College students started in mid-October. These midterm assessments can take the form of in-person tests or remote projects and essays. Harvard College offers more than 3,700 courses across 50 concentrations. There are no official statistics on what proportion of courses require midterms, but examinations remain central to most undergraduates’ academic lives.

Research shows that test-based examinations improve students’ retention of course material and motivate them to learn it, a sentiment echoed by professors at Harvard. 

Professor Jason Furman ’92 currently teaches Economics 10a: “Principles of Economics,” which administers a midterm exam with 30 multiple-choice questions that students must complete in one hour. He believes the purpose of a midterm “is both to motivate students to learn the material, and also to assess what fraction of the material they learned and how well they’re able to apply the material,” he explained to the Independent.

Ec 10 is popular among undergraduate students and has been for many years. Statistics from 2017 showed that more than 600 undergraduates were enrolled in the course. With such a large class size, it is a challenge to maintain equity—for every student to understand and respond to a test question in the same way. By mitigating individual differences through multiple choice, Furman hopes he can accurately gauge the class’s overall understanding of the material. 

“You make one careless error, and that means you get one out of 30 questions wrong. That’s not a huge deal. If your midterm is two big problems, you have some issue with one of them, and all of a sudden, it affects the whole thing,” Furman said, explaining why he prefers his assessment format.

As a potential concentrator in a humanities discipline with mainly take-home essays, Wren Horne-Sarkees ’29 added to Furman’s emphasis on the merit of multiple-choice questions for midterms. “It’s very different seeing how much one assignment affects your grade, especially when there’s classes that, say, don’t have p-sets. That one essay can make or break [your grade],” she told the Independent.

Since essay grading is more subjective than a traditional exam, humanities students may feel more pressure to succeed on midterm assignments. “I feel like I was definitely stressed out at times,” Horne-Sarkees added.

However, Furman also acknowledged a drawback of multiple-choice exams, especially ones with a 60-minute time cap. “[Students] definitely can feel some time pressure,” he said.

Furman also gave his definition of what makes a good test question. “You should have ones that are taking a concept in class, but applying it, forcing you to think about how to apply it in any type of way.”

Sarah Zhang ’29, who recently took a midterm in Ec 10 and Math 21a: “Multivariable Calculus,” reflected on a similar idea. “I do think that, at least in the classes I’m in, the midterms are more conceptual than calculation-based,” she said.

Experiences with midterms also varied between humanities and STEM-focused courses. Social science exams share with humanities midterms the freedom to write long-answer responses, which allows them the space to elaborate on their ideas as long as they are deeply familiar with the material. 

Amy Tan ’29 was able to compare midterms in STEM and social sciences courses. She recently took midterms in Ec 10 and Government 50: “Data Science for the Social Sciences.” While Ec 10 had a multiple-choice exam, Gov 50’s exam was entirely written. An exam like this requires the student to comprehensively understand the intersection between data science and government in order to accurately and eloquently explain ideas.

“You could argue that Gov 50 is a little harder in the sense that, if you just don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t just pick something, you have to know [it],” Tan told the Independent.

Across all concentrations, instructors create midterm exams they believe best prepare their students for the future. Although they can be nerve-wracking, midterm exams are not designed by instructors to cause excessive stress or to confuse students. 

As Ryan Jiang ’29 put it, “I always try to approach tests with a carefree attitude, in a way, so you’re not too stressed, which might hinder your performance.”

Ellie Guo ’29 (eguo@college.harvard.edu) was preparing for a midterm while writing this article.