3 minute read
COVER That’s a wrAP
ART BY ERINN VARGA
ZOW takes a look at the different AP exams and the ways students prepare for them.
Advertisement
BY GABBY MONIZA
AP Testing season has finally finished, and a collective sigh of relief is being let out by students and teachers all over West High. The tension and eyebags are a dead give away to the late studies and fatigue students experience. AP classes are a fixed part of the culture of West High, leading to pressures on taking and receiving good scores. However, not all AP classes are the same test of a student’s will.
AP testing is an extremely prominent part of American students’ daily lives. In 2021 only, over 2.5 million students took an AP class, and 4.7million AP exams were taken. 44 percent of West High students were enrolled in an AP Class last spring (Gazette) and the pass rate was roughly 83 percent. With so much stress and pressure put on students during the AP Testing season, how do students from West High balance the stress?
-DELMIRA JARA ‘24
One student, Delmira Jara ’24 explains that most of the pressure felt during the AP testing season is pressure placed on oneself. West High was ranked the top high school in Iowa this year, and there seems to be a lot of internal pressure placed on students to maintain that high standard. “West High’s kinda like a competitive school and everyone wants to do their best. Being able to say ‘I’m taking six AP’s versus ‘I’m taking all regular classes’ gives you a lot of academic recognition.” Jara ’24. Tyson Smith, AP Economics and Seminar teacher, prefers to describe this feeling as urgency rather than stress. “It’s hard sometimes to craft a good message to the whole group. Because you may have some people who mabe need to feel more urgency and some you hope will feel less.” Smith believes that laughter is always one of the best medicines for stress, and he tries to keep his classroom an open and light hearted place students can be in to learn, yet also relax.
To manage this stress, students utilize different methods of studying to prepare for these exams. Jara likes to take practice AP tests before the actual exam to get a taste of what it’s like. In terms of when to start studying, Annie Schwartz ’23 states, “I start studying whenever we finish our course content so it’s different for each class.” Bella Tisdale ’24 uses the website Fiveable, “This website really saved me this year, it’s great for when you really need to cram.” It is easier to cram for some AP classes than others, take for example, AP Seminar.
When you visualize a typical AP test, you most likely imagine rows of desks all lined up, with complete silence except for the scratch of a pencil on paper, or the occasional cough. But for AP Seminar students, their AP “exam” looks much different. They do have a written exam at the end of the year, but it is much shorter than most, and it is only essay writing. The rest of the year they work on a series of performance tasks to turn into the college board. Smith describes the class as “projects involving extended writing.” Another similar AP class in terms of exams is AP Art. Rather than an end of year test, AP Art students spend the year working on a portfolio showcasing their art that they turn into the college board. Despite the lack of end of year exams, the stress level for AP Art students is still very high.
Though AP classes are all different, they are still an important part of West and students’ lives. “The importance of [the AP tests] depends on what you want to do in your future, if it is important to what you want to do in the future, it can be beneficial for you.” Jara ’24.
AP CLASSES AT WEST
Studio Art English Literature and Composition English Language and Composition Calculus AB Calculus BC Statistics Computer Science Music Theory Biology Chemistry Physics US History Human Geography Government & Politics Psychology Economics: Macro & Micro World History Spanish French Capstone Seminar Capstone Research
DESIGN BY HELEN ORSZULA
