As May approaches each year, high school campuses shift into a season of stress and late-night studying as students prepare for Advanced Placement(AP) exams. This year’s exams took place May 4-15.
Junior Ellen Hu took two AP exams this year, AP Psychology and AP Environmental Science, she said.
“People often underestimate the difficulty of these AP exams because they are labeled as easy, but it is actually really important to study and not procrastinate,” Hu said.
Ms. Byler and Mr. Barret did a really good job of preparing our class for the AP exams, Hu said.
“Especially the week before the AP exams, we did a lot of review because both of these classes are very content-heavy,” Hu added.
In the middle of the AP psychology multiple-choice section, the fire alarm went off, Hu said.
“It went off four times for a total of 20 minutes,” Hu said. “At the end of our multiple-choice section during the break, we got the choice to retake the test or we could move on. No one chose to retake the test,” Hu said.
Hu chose not to retake the test because of the amount of work she put into the test, she said.
“Even with the alarms, I did my best, so I didn’t think I needed to retake the test,” Hu said..
When the alarms went off, Hu was really anxious, she said.
“I took a deep breath and just did my best to focus on the test,” Hu said. “In AP Psych, we learned the power of positive thoughts, so I applied that to my AP test,” she added.
Studying on your own time and keeping up with your AP classes is really important, senior Anwita Gupta said.
“This year I took three AP exams: chemistry, environmental science, and literature,” Gupta said. “I personally want to go into science, so that is why I did chemistry and environmental science, but I did AP literature because I enjoy English,” Gupta added.
AP chemistry and AP literature were only a day apart, so it was really stressful, Gupta said.
“However, I would say that my AP exams went pretty well,” Gupta said. “I did yoga just for a few minutes the night before my AP exam to calm my nerves,” she added.
The AP classes here teach you a lot, so she felt really prepared for her exams tests, Gupta said.
“You do end up falling behind really quickly if you procrastinate, especially with exams like AP chemistry and AP literature. As long as you read the books, you should be fine,” Gupta said.
Junior Nima Bhavansikar found AP exam week to be extremely stressful, especially since she had three exams.
“My hardest exam was definitely Calculus BC because of the amount of formulas that I needed to memorize,” Bhavansikar added.
Her exams were also back-to-back, making everything extremely difficult to manage, Bhavansikar said.
“After each of my AP exams, I went home and took a nap, and that helped me manage my stress,” Bhavansikar said. “It made me feel very well-rested because I stayed up studying all night.”
I felt really well prepared for all my AP exams, especially APUSH, because my teacher, Ms. Parada, was very thorough, Bhavansikar said.
“AP exams are not as hard as people say they are, as long as you actually put the effort in, pay attention in class, and avoid procrastination,” Bhavansikar added.
