AP Season: Final Stretch

In just 6 days, the first AP exam will be administered at New Hartford. AP Biology is the first, and then the rest will follow. How is everyone feeling about these upcoming exams?

 

What Are APs?

 

Advanced Placement courses, informally known as APs, are rigorous challenges that students can choose to take on to either gain extensive knowledge of a certain subject, or to look more appealing for college applications. It takes an enormous amount of studying, perseverance, and dedication to do well in these classes.

AP classes are offered in a wide variety of subjects here at New Hartford. For example, students can take AP Computer Science Principles as an introductory course in the realm of Computer Science. You can also take more intensive subjects that need prior experience, like AP Physics II or AP Calculus BC.

The College Board claims that taking APs can help place students at an advantage in terms of being prepared for college. Also, taking APs can help boost a student’s GPA as it adds ten points to their weighted GPA. Also, they can help develop integral college skills, and can help them discover their true passion.

Sophomores will be taking their first AP exam this May. By far, AP European History is the most common first-AP for sophomores at New Hartford. 

 

How Are Students Feeling?

 

Procrastination can become a problem among students, which leads to them putting off necessary studying. This can lead to increased stress and anxiety associated with this final stretch of time before the AP exams.

Also, social media stirs up a lot of anxiety regarding these tests. It is easy for students to compare themselves to people they see online who have aced all of their exams and have been accepted into prestigious universities. This leads to students feeling pressured into believing that they have to achieve the same accomplishments as these unique students.

Lauren Schilling and Megha Athmakuri are current sophomores enrolled in AP Euro who are about to take their first AP exam. 

“I’m feeling very nervous about it,” Lauren said. “I’m definitely feeling the pressure to study more!”

“Honestly, I’m feeling kind of excited about the test, mostly because I want it to be over,” Megha said. “I’m still feeling nervous though. Overall, I really enjoyed the course itself and the curriculum, and I want to show my knowledge on the test. I do wish that there was more in-class practice for DBQs, especially with analyzing documents.”

Lillian Brady is a current junior who will be taking three AP tests during the exam weeks. 

“I’m feeling very overwhelmed and even more nervous than last year,” she said. “I am most worried about my AP Chemistry test since the topics are very hard to truly understand.”

Kasey Brown is a current senior who is going to take two AP exams this year.

“I would say I am feeling very confident for my exams this year,” Kasey said. “I think back to my sophomore year, and how stressed and nervous I was. I don’t feel that as much now, even though I am still a little bit nervous, as most people do for any test.”

Some AP exams are switching to digital formats in an effort to increase exam security.

Kasey said that she feels concerned about this switch since she has taken paper exams before.

“It is going to feel more weird,” she added.

Personally speaking, I am glad that this change is happening. I feel like I can write more in the allotted time, and get the ideas that I want to convey onto the test in time.

Although some APs are fully digital, a wide variety of exams are hybridized. This means that the test is both digital and hard-copy. For example, in AP Chemistry, the multiple choice questions are digital, but the free-response questions are on paper.

With AP tests around the corner, it is crucial that students start studying now. These courses contain extremely large amounts of content, and attempting to cram all this information a couple of days before taking the test is not a wise choice. Instead, take just a small amount of time each day and review as much as possible up until the day of your exam.