Written by Tracy Yang
In the past year, the College Board, along with other standardized testing companies, have kept students in the dark about how AP exams will look. Many students were under the assumption that because the College Board has had some experience before that they’d have an idea of what the 2021 exams would look like. And while students have been studying and preparing all year for the annual test, there was little to no information given to them about where, when, and how the tests would be administered. With 2 million students in 2019 who’ve participated in the AP program worldwide, it can seem a bit frustrating for them with unanswerable questions about the dreaded annual exam.
However, on February 4, 2021, the College Board announced that there will now be three administrative dates for each test. The first administrative dates are May 3rd-7th, May 10th-12th, May 14th, and May 17th, and it will all be in-person. The second are May 18th-21st and May 24th-28th, and half are in-person, half are digital. Lastly, the third testing dates are June 1st-4th and 7th-11th and are all digital tests (apcentral.collegeboard.org). The schedule has made AP testing immensely more clear to both students and teachers. There is now a certain date that people in both hexmesters can study for, with those in 3.1 shooting for administrative 1, and 3.2 for administrative 2 or 3.
Teachers as well as students this year have adapted a lot to the AP curriculum especially because of the “hexmester” schedule implemented in response to the pandemic. After the full distance learning during 2020 tri 3, many said that it was too much and too fast. To attempt to solve this problem, the district decided to break the trimesters in half and have 3 periods per hexmester.
“I appreciate the idea that it simplifies a student’s schedule and limits the number of classes that a student needs to check into each day. However, the tradeoff is that we have to move through the material at a much quicker pace, and there are large gaps between our time with specific students… The pace is tiring, but I also think that doing 5 online lectures each day would also be exhausting for teachers and students,” said Physics Teacher Matt Howard.
“You only have three classes in a day so there is much less to juggle in terms of homework and assignments between classes… I also think that the hexmester format has pushed the learning style of memorizing something for a test and then forgetting it soon after especially since we are so rushed with the short amount of time allowed in each hexmester,” said Student Council President Rebecca Poor.
Overall, there’s a general consensus that the hexmester has both positives and negatives, but the already accelerated college-level curriculum in addition to the hexmester schedule makes AP testing all the more difficult.
“With the 6 week break, you're forced to remember everything in the previous hexmester as well as learn things for the current hexmester. The amount of stuff compounds and becomes very overwhelming,” said Senior Anita Chetty, who has taken 14 out of the 16 AP classes offered.
Students now are responsible for more self-study as well as mental gymnastics that need to be done in order to retain all the information learned after the 6-week break.
Students take AP classes for many reasons: college applications, college preparation, college credits, and GPA boosts as well as to challenge themselves.
“Despite everything, I will say that, as a senior, this spread out schedule has definitely helped with my senior slide whether that be for better or for worse,” Anita Chetty said.
