Stress is high and students are cramming during the first two weeks of May. AP (Advanced Placement) students have made their final preparations to take their AP tests.  AP students who are taking this test are sent into a classroom that is often not their regular class, or the library, and sit there taking the test on either the computer or a piece of paper for approximately four hours until their time is up. Clocks are set up around the room for every student,  so they know the time and can keep track of how long they’ve taken for each section. To help understand the pressure, a couple of students were asked to share their experiences this year. 

“I took the AP Lang. with comp test,” said Kyla Wadolowski, “I honestly just studied a bit the night before.  I feel like I did okay, there were obviously some sections that were difficult but still, I totally recommend taking AP English Lang. Mr. Benson is a great teacher, and you get college credit for English 101.”

Ap English Language and Composition is a junior year English class dedicated to rhetoric and the uses of it through synthesis, argumentative, and analytical essays and writings, there is only one teacher for this class, Mr. Benson, who has four periods of it.  His other period is teaching British Literature, a senior year English class.

“I took US History, English Language and Composition, and Computer Science Principles,”  Nathan Wheeler said. “I used Quizlet, my notes, and practice tests on College Board to study for their exams. I definitely wasn’t excited to take the tests, but I feel like I passed all of them, maybe a 4 (out of 5) on them all. I recommend AP Lang and A-Push, (AP US History), because the teachers are both great and the course work isn’t too challenging, I recommend AP Computer Science, if you are planning to go into a computer science major.”

A-Push is a common name used for AP US History. Mrs. Dobeck starts the class with learning from the 1400s instead of the 1800s like a normal history class, and it ends in the late 1900s. Computer Science Principles is a beginner coding class taught by Mr. Brenchley. This class starts by using code.org learning the basics of coding using color coded blocks, they later move to more complex stuff and are encouraged to use the ‘java’ setting in code.org to get an idea of how actual java script is written, they are also taught an array of vocabulary terms used in coding, which also shows up on the test.