Stressful AP exams are still to be determined

The 2021 AP exams will be administered over two weeks from May 3-7 and May 10-14. The usual $40 cancellation/unused test fee will be waived this year, so students can cancel by March 12, 2021 at 11:59 ET if they change their mind about taking the exam. 

As of now the question of whether the exams will be taken online or in-person is still to be determined. 

Several students are worried about what the exams will be like as well as worrying about not learning enough in their AP classes.

“I’m taking two AP exams this year and I’m worried about the exams because I haven’t tried the original two to three hours exam before, only the abridged 45 minutes one,” senior Jolie Tran said. “I think that the AP exams will be close to the same format as last year because there is a lot of uncertainty for in person testing still.”

The College Board states that AP will support in-school testing in 2021 but if social distancing is still necessary, schools will have additional options to ensure all students can test.

“I am waiting to hear more from the College Board and for now it seems they have taken the optimistic approach that everything will be normal by May 2021,” said Assistant Principal Kevin Baker.

Some teachers are worried about preparing the students for AP exams this year because there is not enough time per class to teach each course thoroughly.

“We are behind by a couple of chapters compared to previous years, and a lot is being put on the students to master the material on their own,” math teacher Anissa Gerdts expressed.

To help students as teachers teach each unit, AP Central is releasing daily videos (called AP Daily) for each unit as soon as possible while following the pacing of each course.

These videos are located at the AP Classroom homepage (https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/)  and are produced by over 300 highly experienced AP teachers from all over the world. 

Each video is about ten minutes long — there are multiple videos per unit– and teachers can assign progress check multiple choice questions for each unit.

As for how AP students are preparing for the exams, they have a lot of options which includes reviewing notes, studying from textbooks, watching AP Daily videos, asking teachers questions during Trojan Time, and more.

“I’m just trying to do my best in my courses, but will be reviewing the content in closer detail and just doing lots of practice tests as the exam dates get closer,” explained Tran.

Although this year might be difficult, there are a lot of resources out there to help students ace their AP exams in the upcoming spring.

“I’m still hopeful, because, in my experience, CVHS students typically rise to any challenge, but there are a lot of challenges to overcome,” said Gerdts.