Tests
During lunch today, I saw a crowd of people looking towards the direction of the first floor boy’s bathroom. A prank? Hopefully not, since they were looking pretty stoic. Maybe someone jumped through the opening at the top. Nope. It was the final exam schedule.
So I too joined to count how many finals I had. Three. And I expected all of them. Nonetheless, I wasn’t too thrilled. It was the same amount as last year, though I did have two large projects. For taking only six classes, including a college class that I’ve already finished, it seemed quite a bit.
Before I think about finals, I still have an AP to take on Wednesday, AP English Language & Composition. What annoys me most is the fact that only 5.4% of test takers receive a 5, an frighteningly low percentage for a “standardized” test. Just for comparison, AP Calc BC has 41.9% get 5’s. Better get studying.
I thought that after taking SATs and ACTs that I would be done with major testing for at least a few years. True I was the one who decided to take the APs, but College Board makes offers that look too good to pass. According to the UIUC AP Website, scoring a 4 or 5 on English Language will give me four hours of credit and exemption from Comp I, which for most colleges is a huge class that deals with such things as speech and rhetoric. Score a 4 or 5 on a language AP, and get more than a dozen hours of credit. It’s hard to pass on that.
Taking an APs here or there is a pretty good idea (especially if it’s calculus and your grade depends on it), but it has it’s downsides as well. Fellow Gargoyle staff member Alex Zhai wrote a column a little while ago on why he didn’t decide to take any APs this year.
On a more extreme note, I had read in a Newsweek article one or two years ago about a high school senior who graduated with more than a dozen passing AP tests, and could only get out of a few intro classes. Naturally, he had decided to attend a top-notch Ivy school.
Be sure you only take APs if you know the college(s) you are applying to will accept them. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting $85 and a couple hours of your time doing something you probably really hate.
Study hard! Only two weeks and finals left.
—Benjamin Fu