It’s the end of Christmas break for high school students, and the joys of the holidays are coming to an end. They are trying to get back into the mindset of waking up early again, and will soon be missing the past two weeks of freedom. Yet, what haunts most students the most about the final semester of their school year is something far worse than school itself: AP Tests.
The mere mention of these two words is enough to send shivers down any study conscious student’s spine. They are beginning to realize that the life they have once known is about to change. They will be losing free time, precious hours of sleep, and some will fall just short of losing their minds. With almost every class offering an AP test, and every teacher just about forcing you to take as many you can, the pressure begins to multiply, expectations begin to rise, and the anxiety will cause your head to burst.
Yes, we all know that AP tests are very important for college admissions, because they look great on a resume and reward you with college hours. But I think there is a bit more behind AP tests that many teachers and adults do not see. These exams have a very dark side, pushing kids to the brink of their limits, causing many to fall into a dark hole that gets deeper and deeper as the test date gets closer and closer.
As a high student myself who took six AP tests this year, I am fully aware of the evil side to these tests as I have seen students lose friendships, have multiple breakdowns, and go on day after day with dwindling self esteem. This is when we have to ask ourselves “are we asking too much of students in high school?” We all are aware of the benefits of these tests, but is the process leading up to them worth the brutal beating we are given?
I know for a fact that most of my fellow classmates and I will look back on this last semester and honestly say it was one of the worst periods of our lives. With countless days consisting of before-school tutoring starting at seven in the morning, after-school tutoring ending at 5:30, along with the extracurricular activities most students are involved with, we spent 12 hours each day in school. But the day did not end there; we then had to go home to the endless amounts of AP review given on top of regular homework assignments. Hopefully, we finished working at around midnight (on a good day), grabbed a quick bite to eat, sank into bed for the hopeful six-hour sleep…then wake up to do it all over again.
At times, it seems that teachers tend to lose sight of what their actual goal is. They think that by plowing us to the ground with non-stop work we will be learning, but with so much information to cover in so little time, many students become overwhelmed and lose sight of the mark. I think teachers forget that the actual goal of education is for the students to walk out of the classroom feeling that they have actually learned something, but more often then not we leave wondering how we are ever going to retain all the information that was just dumped onto us.
As the days grow closer and closer to the weeks of testing, the school begins to look less like a place of learning, and more like a psychiatric ward. Along with teenagers endlessly mumbling literary terms to themselves and screaming at dry-erase boards for not letting them finish a calculus problem, every day or two you get to witness another breakdown of an over-stressed student. It is a sad sight to witness, a student pushed past their limits, past the point of no return. It is even sadder to see a student just give up, and I am very guilty of this. Just working as hard as you can, day and night, and not seeming to be getting anywhere at all? It’s a terrible feeling. All of the time you invested studying for these tests can push you to the brink, but in a matter of a minute, your concern for it simple vanishes.
AP tests are over now. Many students took a great sigh of relief upon the realization of it, some students jumped in utter joy (I jumped higher then anyone else). With school drawing to an end and summer growing near, many students are looking forward to a much needed rest, and finally a chance to wake up in the morning without a single obligation hanging over their head. It’s kind of a strange feeling, because none of us have felt that way in a very long time.
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