With the school year coming to a close, many have already started to think about their final exams, a reality for Barstow students and many other high schoolers around the country. For a select few students, however, Advanced Placement, or AP, Exams are yet another source of stress.
The Advanced Placement program is currently run by College Board, a nonprofit organization that claims to bring “college success” to students. The College Board also administers tests like the SAT, PSAT/NMSQT (that qualifies juniors for the National Merit Scholarship), and PSAT 10/9/8 (that allows sophomores, freshmen, and eighth graders to prepare for the junior level test).
As for actual AP courses, students often take them to receive college credit and present a heavier, more rigorous course load that colleges admire on applications. AP courses are designed based on a set curriculum to cover complex topics in a certain subject and to teach students college-course caliber content.
Sophomore Dylan Markey explains this phenomenon, saying that, “I’m stressed because school is coming to a close, and I want to do well on my AP exams and get some credit for college.”
Markey ‘24 is currently taking AP Computer Science Principles, an AP course where students learn skills on Python, Java, and Code.org, all culminating in a large final project that the College Board grades, as well as a test over the principles of coding and computer history.
This format can act as a bit of a relief, as students can take more time to finish up their projects without the very stressful time constraints. But the corresponding tests, while shortened, still cause warranted stress over preparation.
For Markey ‘24, he “finished my project a couple days ago when we had to turn it in. I really like the way they do it because it’s not all test-based, some of it is a project and the rest is just multiple choice.”
With each AP test subject, the test format differs. For history AP exams such as AP US History and AP World History, the tests consist of 55 multiple choice questions, 3 short answer questions, and two essay questions, taking 4 hours in total.
Students have to learn different skills to accomplish the test successfully, such as explaining the context of the prompt, formulating a cogent claim, using multiple pieces of evidence, and finally, analyzing this evidence within the framework of the claim.
In addition to history exams, AP also offers science, math, english, and language exams, as well as the ability to submit portfolios and essays for classes like AP Art and AP Seminar.
AP Science exams offered at Barstow include AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, AP Physics I and II, and AP Biology. The classes boast a severe course load, often one to two hours of homework a day, as well as difficult topics to understand conceptually.
Param Vora, a junior in AP Chemistry, cites the exam as his “hardest.” He, along with his classmates Aaram Salam ‘23, Aishi Sethi ‘23, and others, took the AP Chemistry Exam on Monday, May 2. All of them said that they were “most stressed” for this exam. Vora ‘23 continued on his preparation methods, explaining that “I do a lot of practice tests and go over my notes for the class,” and that Mr. Kyle Dembinski, the chemistry teacher, “gave practice tests in class.”
Preparation for AP exams can look vastly different for each student and for each subject, depending on if it is humanities, STEM, or art.
Many AP History students used Youtube videos to review for the test. Crash Course has been cited by a few, but a majority of the students use Heimler’s History, a YouTube channel run by history teacher Steve Heimler. Heimler has been “a classroom teacher, a reader for the national AP exam, and an AP History content creator on YouTube for the past 10 years.”
Charlotte Park, a previous AP World student, sent the sophomores a notes guide for all of Heimler’s videos. Nithin Guduputi ‘24 and Cyrus Shaikh ‘24 said that “Charlotte Park, the GOAT” provided them with necessary study materials.
Heimler also makes videos for AP Government, AP US History, and AP European History exams, going over each unit with details and concision, a balance that is hard to keep.
Additionally, Ms. Angela Guldin, the AP World teacher, gave the students practice examinations that counted for their final grade. Guduputi said, “Ms. Guldin’s practice final helped me a lot, and it calmed my nerves down.” Many of the students echoed this sentiment, saying that the test was a lot easier than they expected and gave them a good preparation for the real exam.
Many juniors and seniors also took AP Language and AP Literature exams. With these tests, students are expected to employ something called rhetorical analysis, where they must take given short stories and poems and write small paragraphs about them. Within these short answers, they must analyze different types of figurative language and how the author applies them.
For some students, this style of testing is the most difficult due to its abstract nature and the unknown content. “I’m most nervous about English just because I don’t know what it’s gonna be,” Gus Ketchell ‘23 said.
AP Test season comes with a variety of challenges, but perhaps the most common is trouble in balancing all facets of life and the stress that comes with it. Students faced an unwieldy amount of work, and the need to get a good grade on their various tests is resounding, all while also keeping up with current coursework and studying for finals.
Mr. Matt Thurman, upper school math teacher recommended “finding balance with your free time. Don’t study too much and take time for yourself.”
