For most juniors and seniors, the end of the school year is filled with many exciting events. Prom, graduation, and Mr. Middletown make up much of this excitement. Although, there’s one thing that juniors and seniors aren’t so excited for: Advanced Placement Testing.
Middletown High School is now in the midst of AP testing.
Every school year seniors, juniors and some sophomores take AP courses. These courses are meant to be college level courses. If a passing score is achieved on the AP exam, some colleges will give students college credit.
“I want the credit for college so I have to pass my exams,” said Middletown High School junior, Emily Blick.
AP course teachers have been preparing their students for these exams since the beginning of the school year.
“Besides covering all the material, we do sample problems from old AP exams all year long,” said MHS AP Chemistry teacher, David Thomas.
Jeffrey Colsh, an AP Psychology teacher at MHS, has prepared students by giving his students all the material available to him, giving a practice exam at the end of each semester, and providing after-school review sessions.
“With an AP exam, we don’t create the test,” said Colsh. “So we can only try to give them as much knowledge as we can.”
Although teachers play a large role in helping students review for their AP exams, it’s also partly a student’s responsibility to review and prepare independently.
“They have to meet me halfway,” said Thomas.
Most students are taking more than one exam. Blick is taking both the AP United States History exam and the AP Psychology exam.
In order to review for her exams, Blick has “gotten the review books from Barnes and Nobles” and “gone over classwork.”
This past week students across the country have taken the first half of the AP exams. Next week, the second half of the exams will be administered to students.
According to Thomas, with test dates fast approaching students and teachers can’t do much more to prepare now.
“It’s not a question of how much they’ve studied the night before, its how much they’ve studied all year long.”
