AP Season Reflection
On Monday, May 5th, AP season began, and students at Leonia High School were challenged with testing on material that they’ve learned all year in their AP courses. Some might wonder if taking an AP course is the best choice for them. Some might not want to because they don’t feel it best suits them. Others may want to take an AP course or two to challenge themselves. Some might not want to deal with the hours spent in a room being tested on a subject they took the class for, just to have it on their record. Whatever the case may be, students who have taken AP courses know what they were getting themselves into when they signed up for those courses.
Sometimes people get scared of taking an AP course because of how challenging the curriculum may be or how tough the teacher may be, but in the end, it turns out the course was fun because the teacher made it fun. When reflecting on this year’s AP season, senior Yoobi Kim says, “The hardest AP test I took was AP Physics II. However, I was able to prep myself by watching videos on AP Classroom and on YouTube, as well as practicing with FRQs and MCQs.” Yoobi also feels that Mr. Braden, the physics teacher, was able to help out a lot by making the course enjoyable with all the labs and activities. Through all the hard work and time it took to prepare for this exam, Yoobi was able to manage her studies and recommends this course to anyone interested in going into the STEM field.
Sometimes someone may not like the course because the curriculum is split up into two years and requires a lot of studying and memorization. Or sometimes, when the course is split up into two years, it might be easier for people because of the amount of content that is in the course; this makes a person prepare themselves for two years so they are well prepared when the exam comes. When reflecting on APUSH, junior Audrey Sugiaman says, “This course is a good one to take, but your experience heavily depends on which teacher you get. Overall, it’s a good class to take, and doing well on the team can help you with college acceptances and such, but the class itself is a learning curve.” Audrey thinks that whoever takes this course—as they should—should mentally prepare themselves for the amount of studying and hard work they’ll need to put in. No matter what teacher you have, always think about the fact that AP courses typically force you to be reliant on yourself more than 90% of the time.
Other courses, such as math AP courses, might be harder for people to step into because of how much content there is. Even though the content might be a lot for people to handle, the more people focus in class, the less they will have to worry about it later before taking the exam. Senior DoHwan Kim says, “My hardest AP was AP Calculus BC. If I am being honest, the more I paid attention in class, the more I got the material, which made the exam easier than cramming all the studying.” DoHwan recommends this course to anyone who wants a GPA boost and can handle math with minimal issues. Yes, relying on the teacher is good from time to time, but being able to handle the content independently is going to help people prepare for college-level courses.
Overall, AP season seemed to be pretty manageable for these three, and hopefully it was manageable for everyone else in Leonia High School. With all the juniors getting ready to close out their year and thinking about applying to colleges, the junior class seemed to be taking their exams very seriously. It seems like everyone should take their AP exams seriously; however, some may turn out to be easier than others.
