After finishing up their exams, this year’s first-time AP students are entering the relaxing last few weeks of the year. With a break in their usually busy schedules, they now have time to reflect on their experiences in AP classes and pass on their knowledge to the next generation of AP students.
The first two weeks of May were completely filled with AP exams, Loy Norrix’s library’s doors being closed while students took their tests. For some students, these were their first AP tests.
Sophomore Ellen Terzino took two AP classes this year, AP U.S. History and AP Literature and Composition. Although she was nervous before her tests, now that the test is over, Terzino feels far more relaxed and positive.
“I think I’m confident with what I did, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that if I don’t do well, I’m not too upset about it because it really doesn’t affect our grade,” said Terzino. ”I just really enjoyed what I learned along the way. I find the AP test to be important, but my score is not the most important thing to me, but I hope I do well.”
For her first year of AP classes, Terzino took a bit of an irregular route. Last year she tested out of 10th grade English classes so she could take AP Literature and Composition.
“I would 100% recommend my AP Literature class. It was so fun, we read some really interesting books including one of my favorites, ‘Invisible Man,’ which was really, really good. We read a lot of wonderful short stories like ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ which was just a really interesting story, and we had really in-depth conversations every day,” Terzino said.
Looking into the future, Terzino warns freshmen of burnout.
“Don’t try to be a tryhard. Yes, you want to do your work as well as you can, and everyone wants that for you, but…your health and your stamina is what's gonna get you through this class,” said Terzino.
Lucy Langerveld took the AP U.S. History exam at the scheduled time, May 8, but had to take the AP Psychology test on the makeup date, May 17.
“I feel really confident about my AP U.S. History exam because I definitely had a better testing environment since I took the AP Psych one as a makeup test,” said Langerveld. “I think I had a lot of content knowledge for AP Psych, and I definitely think I had a lot more writing practice for AP U.S. History, but not enough writing practice for AP Psych.”
Although Langerveld struggled with the writing portion of the AP Psych exam, Langerveld wholeheartedly recommends the class for freshman looking for their first AP class.
“It’s not necessarily deemed a ‘beginner AP class’ like AP U.S. History is, but it’s very easy, I think, if you stay on top of the workload and it’s just a good introduction to AP classes,” Langerveld said.
Maya Alvarez took AP U.S. History like most other sophomores taking AP classes, but she also opted to take AP Spanish. Alvarez speaks Spanish at home and also attended El Sol Elementary, where classes are taught in both English and Spanish.
“I feel really confident about my Spanish score, especially from knowing Spanish since I was a baby. In APUSH [AP U.S. History], I felt like I had to work a lot harder to have a good score and keep pace with the class, but I think I did okay,” said Alvarez.
Although an unconventional piece of advice, Alvarez highly recommends making close personal connections with people in AP classes.
“Make friends with the people in the class. Another thing that I liked about them [AP classes] is that I made a lot of friends in my AP classes because I’d see them all year.” Alvarez continued,
“For Spanish, make friends with Mrs. Holmes, and just be nice to her because I feel like being friendly with her has helped a lot.”
Alvarez recommends that freshmen sign up for AP U.S. History to learn some of the more technical skills of AP classes, such as learning how to write AP essays like DBQ’s and LEQ’s.
Nateya Thomas took three AP classes this year: AP U.S. History, AP Psychology and AP Spanish.
“I would say for AP classes you need to make sure that you’re keeping an organized notebook, and you’re taking notes when the teacher is talking,” said Thomas. “A lot of teachers are trying to prepare you for a college environment, so they’re going to lecture to you and you’re going to have to write it down, and you have to make sure that those notes are organized so you can practice for exams and things like that.”
Thomas, now well-versed in AP class structure and content, recommends AP U.S. History as well as AP Psychology. However, in contrast to Alvarez, she doesn’t recommend AP Spanish as an introduction to AP classes.
“I would definitely recommend AP US History, and I do not recommend any AP language courses because that is definitely very rigorous and you need to make sure that you are on top of your stuff,” Thomas said. “I would also recommend AP Psychology because you just need a history credit to be able to join that class. You don’t actually need to take the Psych class, so it's a good beginner class, and you don’t have to know anything at the beginning of those two classes.”
The AP Spanish teacher, Christina Holmes, also recommends that students don’t take AP Spanish as their first AP class.
Now that they’ve taken their tests, AP students get to relax from the rigorous schedule and partake in fun content-related activities.
“It’s a lot more laid back than it was before, like we really just have fun with what we’re studying now. Like in English, we just had a party today where we dressed up as some of our favorite characters throughout literature,” said Terzino.
Other classes have focused their time more towards various projects and winding down until the end of the year.
“It’s super-relaxed. We’re watching a ton of movies, and we’re doing a ton of projects based on the information that we learned earlier in the year,” Thomas said.