How OHSers are Preparing for AP Exams

AP exams are something that all students, both middle and high schoolers alike, are familiar with. Whether a student is taking their first AP exam this May or they have taken countless of them over the years, they never seem to become less nerve-wracking or stressful. Students can choose to take tests in a variety of subjects, including STEM, the arts, humanities, and languages, with each test typically taking around three to four hours. Even though each test focuses on the material taught within a specific course, the exams themselves can hold a lot of value for college credit and college applications, so students sometimes tend to feel a buildup in pressure as the exam dates approach, especially when students are taking multiple exams.

Based on a survey conducted on 10 OHS students of different grades, 60% of the students are taking at least four exams this year alone, with some taking up to six exams! Another 30% are planning on taking two exams, and only 10% of students taking one exam. Some of the more popular exams students are taking are AP Calculus AB and BC, AP Biology, AP Physics, AP World History, and AP US History. Most of these exams are known to be strenuous and take a great deal of time to prepare for because of the large amount of material needed to understand in order to feel prepared for the test.

While the material on the exam aligns with the topics taught in the correlated course, the exam tries to cover two semesters' worth of subjects in one single test, which leads to some students beginning to study weeks or months before. As of mid-April, half of the OHS students surveyed felt on track with their preparation, while the other half hadn’t started yet or felt behind in their preparation. Those who felt on track for their studying were mostly doing 80-100% of their preparation outside of OHS, whereas those who didn’t feel as prepared were mostly using OHS resources.

So, how do the students surveyed feel about the APs? According to the survey, there are some mixed emotions, but most feel negatively about them. 40% of OHS students didn’t like taking them, with another 10% thinking the exams are useless. Another 10% think the exams themselves are useful, but cause a lot of stress and take up a lot of time. The other 40% felt indifferent to the exams overall. The reasons why most of the students want to take the AP exams are because they took the course that correlates with the test or they do so for college applications. But over the years, many universities have begun deemphasizing AP exam scores on student applications and also do not allow high school exam scores to count towards college-level credit. The benefits of taking AP exams are hence perhaps becoming less strong than before.

Over the past couple of years and continuing into the future, OHS has been removing its AP-specific courses from its curriculum and supplementing them with a counterpart that has a more specific focus. The goal of this is to not have students feel the immense pressure of AP exams, and instead focus on understanding the material and concepts as opposed to worrying about memorization. OHS hopes to remove all, if not most, of the AP courses from its curriculum, and instead focus on courses that have more specific course content.

AP exams can still be a great way for students to test their knowledge in a certain subject, but perhaps the tests should start being viewed in a different light. Instead of taking a more pressure-filled route, maybe viewing them as an opportunity to learn and grow can be more productive.