Students take AP Exams

As the school year comes to a close, many upperclassmen who have taken AP courses this year are taking their exams. With COVID-19 closing schools down, including Greendale, and changing the school schedule from hybrid, to completely online, to back in person, students’ confidence in their success varies. 

Some classes such as AP Physics and AP Language & Composition have already taken their exams in early May, but others are not until early  June.

Senior Sabrina Benali, who has already taken a whopping 6 AP courses during the past few years, decided to take AP Government & Politics and AP Calculus AB this year. She has become very accustomed to the speed and difficulty of these classes. “Each year I like to challenge myself and try all the AP classes that are available to me and this year it was these courses,” she said.

As she begins her study process by looking over past notes and taking practice exams, she reflects on how she felt about the Covid pandemic and her learning. Personally she feels that the pandemic hasn’t affected her learning much this year. “I don’t think it has impacted my learning that much since I’m an independent learner and don’t need much guidance when it comes to learning the curriculum. With that being said, I don’t think my score would differ that much even if covid wasn’t around,” Benali said.

Senior Andrea Ligocki is also preparing to take many AP exams this year. She is preparing for AP German, AP Biology, AP Calculus AB, AP Government and Politics, and AP Psychology. She decided to take this many because she wants to obtain as much college credit as possible.

Her courses have helped her to become a more seasoned student who is prepared to take on the difficulty of college-level classes. “They’ve been pretty tough this year, but I think it’s helped my work ethic for college,” she said. 

Unlike Benali, she feels that the pandemic has impacted her ability to learn this year. “Covid has made all my classes more difficult in terms of teaching myself, but I think I’ve adjusted enough that my score won’t be affected much,” Ligocki said. 

As she begins to prepare for her exams by doing practice quizzes and exams, she has reflected upon the last her and preparedness. “I feel pretty prepared, but I’m a little nervous about the units covered from the time we were completely online,” Ligocki said. 

Many students decided to take these college-level courses to learn more about their areas of interest. One of these students is senior Paris Pavelchik. 

This year she took AP Physics, AP Calculus BC, AP French, and AP Statistics. “I chose these classes because I was interested in all these subjects and am hoping to receive college credit for these courses,” she said. 

Like Ligocki, she found that the Covid pandemic made learning more difficult this year. “I think that covid had impacted my ability to learn the material when we were all virtual first semester, which now makes it harder studying for the AP exams since there was a huge part of the curriculum that was more difficult to understand,” she stated. “I am worried that this will impact my score, but I’m hoping that with enough studying and preparation, I will get the score I am aiming for.”

For her, she began studying for her exams in a variety of ways. “To prepare, I like to rewrite my notes, go over old and new practice problems, do the online courses/videos that my teachers give me, and I also like to do the AP Classrooms practice problems,” Pavelchik said. 

Senior Alanna Swenski, knew exactly what AP Classes she wanted to take this year in order to prepare for her major in college next year: Architectural Engineering at MSOE. She decided to take AP Physics and AP Calculus BC.

“Taking both of these AP classes not only prepared me for what to expect in college, but they also gave me insight and reassurance that my major, Architectural Engineering, is meant for me,” Swenski said .  “I’ll be walking into my classes with background knowledge on many of the units we’ll be learning next year – so it’s like a step ahead.” 

Her experience with the Covid pandemic was similar to many other students. “I think that COVID-19 affected my understanding of basic concepts in AP Physics that would’ve been easier to comprehend in labs – most of our labs had to be done in simulations which are greatly different than doing them ourselves. I feel that hands on is the best way to learn, in my opinion,” she said. 

Despite this challenging set back for her learning, she is still incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to take these courses and receive quality education. “Ultimately, both of my AP teachers did everything they could to help us and I am so grateful for them!” Swenski said. 

To ensure getting the best score possible, Swenski did hours of preparation. “To prepare for physics, I went over every single homework assignment anda after reviewing that unit’s worth of work, I then retook the test as practice to see how much I’ve retained,”  she stated. “For Calculus, I went over all of my notes, and then took all of the tests and quizzes as practice to see how I do. I am also doing practice FRQs she hands out as well as AP Classrooms questions.”

Reflecting upon the last year with Covid and learning how to be a successful student while going from hybrid to fully virtual to back in person is a feat of its own. Many students put in countless hours of effort into preparing for these AP exams and are truly grateful for their experiences and opportunities they’ve had this year to be better prepared college students in the fall.