Pests, Stress, and AP Tests

The end of April and the bloom of May is just around the corner, and do you know what that means?

AP Test Time. 

The one thing every high schooler dreads from September onward, the one test that could potentially determine the rest of your life within a few hours. 

Ok, yes I'm exaggerating, but that still doesn't mean it's not a big deal. I myself am going to be taking my first AP Test in May for Human Geography, a class I will forever suck at. And the pressure is on. See, AP Tests, or the "Advanced Placement" Tests are basically one big, super tough package of finals all bundled up with dollar tree wrapping and a bow for good measure. They have a huge variety of tests you can choose from, such as English, Math, Science, Music Theory, Language, and so on. But the one thing they all share in common is the grading system, which can be ranked anywhere from 5 to one. To put it in simpler terms: 

5 = Good job my suffering teenager! You have gotten a near perfect (or perfect) score on this test, and this either means that you're really passionate about whatever you learned, or you have crazy tiger Asian parents that will literally buy every prep book on the shelf just so you can become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. 

4 = Still a pretty darn good score! I guess you really did put in the effort needed to study for this test, because there is no other way to get up to this level. It doesn't matter if you hated or loved the subject - at least ya passed!

3 = Yeah no it's still not bad! Maybe you didn't put in as much effort as the four scorers up there did, but that doesn't make you stupid. You're basically a student that struggled a bit through the course, but still managed to survive - well, join the club. A for effort.

2 = Ok...well you probably didn't really try. I mean, you're capable of doing better, but you didn't want to. And honestly, if that's what you want then so be it. You're paying for it, not me.

1 = Why...did you join this class if you knew that you were gonna screw up this badly? Not to be rough out there - but man, either you slept through every single lesson and you just don't care or you're just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. 

Take my rank system with a grain of salt if you want, but I think I've kept it somewhat accurate. 

Did you know that AP Tests didn't even exist until the Cold War? When the USSR and the US were busy with their proxy war and Space Race, the US somehow figured, "Wow, our kids are gonna be really stupid when they grow up. Stupider than the Soviet Union...can't have that happen." That's when College Board jumps into the conversation and come up with the idea of making college like classes...for high schoolers. Particularly one man named Harlan Hanson. Through it, he found out a way to basically pay their way to success. So if you ever get frustrated at AP Tests, now you can point the finger towards Hanson instead of your teachers. 

Speaking of profit, I believe that AP Tests are actually part of a profiting market too. Think about it: college board charges millions of students and schools every year in the US not just for AP Tests, but for the SAT and PSAT too. Sure, some of it goes towards booklets for the test and people to grade it, but the vast majority of it goes towards College Board themselves. 

So my question is: Why is high school education correlated with profit of other businesses?

Think about it - students get into the top schools such as the Ivy Leagues and Cal tech and MIT and whatnot because they take an SAT Test, are involved with a bunch of AP Tests, and scored highly on all of them. That's great and all, but what about the population who might not be able to afford such "luxuries"? Sure, schools can offer aid to low income students who may not be able to pay, but they may not be able to if they earn very little themselves. 

Not to mention that these tests are quite expensive too - the average AP Tests costs around $94.00, and the SAT for every time you take it is around $47.50 to $64.50, depending on if you take the essay portion or not. 

Why are test such as the AP Test and SAT play such a huge part in our college determination? There is almost no way that in this day and age that a student can go to a well-off school without having to take some kind of test with College Board. 

Education has come a far way, but it needs to go farther. We need to make educational opportunities even more universal, and give people better chances to get into colleges. I personally think that College Board can lower their prices down by a lot. I know this will result in them losing profit, but the whole point of College Board is to provide quality education, not quality cash flow. 

I hope that one day education doesn't need to centralize around the money.

Moving on from College Board and their mountain of money, let's talk about the actual importance of AP Tests. I have plenty of smart alecky friends who think that the answer to success is to "take as many AP classes as you can, whether you want to or not." And I'm sure you've heard your teachers and your counselors say this, and now I'm going to say it - it doesn't matter how many you take. There's actually a graph that shows that as you put more AP's on yourself, the less value each one will have in your future application. So it's actually better to have less than more, in a way. 

Not to mention, a lot of people just max out on all the APs they can take, because they want to be "college ready" and really impress the places they may apply to. And let me tell you, if you're applying to some high class universities, the last thing they want to know is about your smart ass being able to survive 7 AP classes in junior year. Sure, it's impressive, but it doesn't mean that you'll be successful in the future. Colleges want to see you for you (as cheesy as that sounds), and the best thing you can do is take AP classes you know you'll enjoy and ace those, while leaving the rest out as honors classes. 

But don't get me wrong - you've always gotta remember to challenge yourself, so don't slack off and take all easy classes every year just 'cause you don't really know what you want to do with life (or care). 

That's as much as I can tell you about AP classes from my point of view, but before I go, here's some Last minute tricks for the test that might come in handy:

-Start studying around a month before, so you can already be ahead of the game. The best thing you can do is get one of those prep books online, but that does NOT have to be an option. You can also borrow one from your local library, or even find online PDFs that resembles your AP tests. 

-Focus on what you hate the most. Sure, Unit 5 may have been hard, but that's why you have to put more effort into that particular part!

-Ask your teacher for advice. Because believe it or not, but they know what the AP test is gonna be like, and believe it or not, teachers can (sometimes) be useful. 

-Cry it out. If you're stressed, let go of all that stress however you can. Read, write, draw, bawl your eyes out, whatever you think can calm you down. Just make sure you don't get all jittered up like that during the test. 

-Put a goal in your head, and try to achieve it. It's a strange mentality, but two out of three times, it actually works. So try it out when you can. 

I know I'm giving all this advice, yet the only one I've personally plan to follow is the "cry it out" one. So basically, don't be like me and be proactive.

To all the high school victims out there, I have faith in you!

And to all the adults reading this for whatever reason...well, share it with your hormone induced child and tell them to subscribe for more. 

If you have any more tips and tricks to stay at the top of the game, then comment down below. 

And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already!

Thanks and good luck my fellow readers. 

-Ganga Prasanth