@happy1, I agree also, but there were parents in all those districts - including Scarsdale (and I know this first hand as my sister’s kids -class of '00 and '02 - were both in high school there at the time) who were very unhappy Regents exams was being required at all. And yes, they thought at the time classes would be dumbed down because of it. It was also the reason private schools fought for the exemption as they felt it would force them to dumb down their curriculum and teach to the test. The private schools got the exemption but none of the public schools who wanted it did.
In the early years I know in my district they took a week or so to go over the material that would be on the regents exams - don’t know if they bother with that anymore.