AP Students finally forced to use all Brain Energy

Photo Courtesy of: Google Images/CollegeBoard

CollegeBoard and AP logo

For the next 2 weeks, students taking AP courses will be taking their long anticipated AP exams. Some students only have one while others might have 5 or more. Each exam will last up to nearly 3 hours, and the pressure is on.

 

AP exams are a big deal because if a student doesn’t pass because the student won’t earn college credits they took the class for. This makes taking AP classes a risk because it is not guaranteed they will earn the credit. While colleges still accept students who didn’t pass the exam, passing the exam allows the student to skip out on specific required college courses and helps students get into schools with lower acceptance rates. If a student took multiple AP exams throughout their high school career, it can even lead to them graduating from university early. 

Junior Brady Beko is taking 5 AP classes this year, and has already taken a few of them. His overall AP experience has been going well, and at the beginning he had the motivation to study and prepare strategies for the exams. However, his schedule is packed so he hasn’t been able to balance studying with extracurriculars completely.

“I enjoy the topics and kinds of discussions the courses offer in comparison to other options although the non-traditional schedule we have had this year has made it difficult to get in the test prep due to the shortened periods,” says Beko.

He believes that next year his AP experience will be more enjoyable because the periods will be longer and the classes will be more tailored towards his interests.

According to CollegeBoard, last year, of all the people who took the World History Advanced Placement test, 19.0% scored a 1, 28.9% scored a 2, 24.0% scored a 3, 18.5% scored a 4 and 9.7% scored a 5.  A 5 is the highest score one can get for an AP exam, and a passing score is either a 3 or a 4. Many of those same students who took WHAP last year took AP courses again this year. Because testing is still in process, the public has yet to receive the statistics of the 2022 testing. 

It has been a stressful year for many AP students. Getting back into the grind of in-person school while also having to take rigorous courses is no easy feat, not to mention the risks that come with taking an AP course and exam.

Shadow Ridge sends it’s luck and cheers to all students taking AP exams!