With quarter two coming to an end, midterm season is approaching, and AICE students are getting anxious. The Cambridge program is a way for students to earn a scholarship to any college. To get the diploma, students must take and pass Advanced International Certificate of Education, or AICE, classes. If the students don’t pass the tests, they don’t get the certificate.

That being in mind, myself and other AICE students are annoyed that we have to do a midterm on top of the other tests we have to do. We’re already pressured to do well to get the diploma.

Being an AICE student can bring great stress to students since they hold a high expectation to their teachers and peers. We’re expected by everyone to be smarter and be able to handle large workloads, but in reality, we’re the same as any other student, just taking more challenging classes.

Compared to other classes, the workload and tests are of college level, making them harder. This causes pressure and stress for the students to do academically well in not only those classes, but every other class, even if they aren’t AICE classes.

Also, we have to focus on our other ‘normal’ classes on top of our AICE classes. Getting a midterm from our other classes is already stressful enough, so getting one from an AICE class is too much for most to handle.

Unlike other midterms, AICE midterms can’t be exempted, and this can mess up a student’s grade for the semester. This can be really unfair because a student can have two A’s for both quarters, but then they take the midterm and do bad. This bad midterm grade reflects your performance for the first semester, and that’s one of the things that college’s look at.