High School Exit ExamsExit exams are an unfair way to determine whether or not a student should receive their diploma. Most students work very hard during high school to get good grades. This should be enough to determine whether a student can graduate from high school. There are many intelligent students who do not have good test-taking skills, exit exams prevent many good students from graduating, and teachers have to restrict their lesson plans for these types of exit exams. These are all good reasons why final exams should not be required to graduate from high school. When it comes to taking exams, some students don't know how to stay calm. Many times when students fail a test it is not because they did not understand the test material, but because the students do not have good test-taking skills. Taking a test can be very nerve-wracking and uncomfortable. A high school student in Paris (Texas) said: "some people suffer from testaphobia, I passed my math class with flying colors, but I get to that TAAS test and my mind is blank, I have no idea why" . (Kunen 62). Texas is one of 22 states that requires a high school exit exam like the TAAS test. Every year many students are prevented from graduating because of these exit exams. This makes students and parents very angry. Students who earned high grades throughout high school don't understand why they can't pass their exit exams. Sometimes the student blames himself by thinking that he has not learned enough, when in reality there is nothing wrong without his knowledge. These students do not realize that they do not have good test-taking skills. Parents are angry that their son was prevented from graduating because of a single test, even though he had all the required credits. This situation occurred to Lee Hicks, another student at Paris, Texas High School. If he had lived 14 miles away in Oklahoma, where there is no statewide exit test, he would have received a diploma and would now be serving his country in the Navy. Instead, Hicks cuts to customers in a Paris supermarket; he won management's Aggressive Hospitality Award in 1996. "He's a great employee, a bright young man, an extremely hard worker," says store manager Larry Legg.