As a teacher of a regent subject, I feel that there’s a tremendous benefit to the fact that my students take my subject more seriously than they take many of the others.
Also, as a student (and now as a teacher) I feel that there’s a benefit in the predictability of the regent questions. The way to study for a regent is by doing lots of practice exams. Don’t sit down with your notes the week of the regent! Just do practice, practice, and more practice. Look up the answers explained in the Barron’s book whenever necessary and then do some more practice.
What I deem to be the down side of regents is the system of rating. The scoring rubric is so screwed. My weakest students, who work crazy hard to pass my tests, generally get in the 80’s on the regent. I’m happy for them; but in essence what does this 85% really mean?