Today I was woken not by the gentle rays of sunlight streaming through my window (a hyperbole, since my room faces west) but by my mother coming and waking me up at 6:20 am. The reason? I had to get to school early for the first day of… AP TESTING WEEK.
PART ONE. The Wakeup Session
All of Mr. Tabor’s government students piled into his room bright and early for a “wakeup session” which basically consisted of us devouring the doughnuts he had purchased for us (Krispy Kreme, mm-hmm <3), going over past tests, trying to memorize all of the 6pt text on the Sparkcharts under our desks, and drilling each other over Supreme Court cases and Amendments. It was pretty high tension in the room, having all 40 or so of us cramped together frantically studying Government. Around 7:30 am we started walked towards the athletic hallway, where all of the AP tests were going to be held this year. It almost felt like a death march as the entire group strung itself across the atrium and courtyard in a nervous procession to our destination.
PART TWO. The Asylum
Usually our AP tests are held in the Lecture Hall, which is a very NICE room. Friendly, welcoming walls, bright but not blinding lights, single desks, and carpeted floors. I didn’t like it much, but I didn’t mind it much either. However, this year the school felt the need to convert one of the weight rooms into a testing center. So they removed all the athletic equipment and placed small, narrow tables in solemn rows throughout the room. The moment I stepped into the room I felt like I was being locked up in an insane asylum (hence the subtitle of this section). The entire place was whitewashed - white stone walls, white tiled floors, grayed tables, whiteboards, white papers covering the boards, white window blinds. I had a rickety chair to complete this ensemble, so for the 30 minutes we were sitting there waiting for everyone to arrive, I rocked myself back and forth on the uneven chair legs.
PART THREE. The Examination
I can’t actually discuss much about the exam itself since I’d rather not be somehow reported to Collegeboard and punished, but I will say that I found the multiple choice section fairly easy. I skipped a total of 3 questions there and made educated guesses on the others. The free-response, however, I didn’t feel too well about. In fact, as I read the free-responses, only one of the questions seemed to be about pure government. The others were a combination of Macroeconomics (which I used to full extent) and US History (which I didn’t even take as a course so I had no idea what was going on).
PART FOUR. The Dismissal
After a grueling 2 hours and 30 minutes in the damned testing facility, we were finally released. I remember sitting around for about 15 minutes waiting for time to be called after I finished my FR. After -that-, we had to wait for the proctors to collect all of the books and et cetera. When we were finally released, everyone returned to class slowly, still slightly jittery and nervous from the experience. Many of us still carried expressions of doom and sorrow as we knew that this was only the first in a series of terrible like experiences to come.
PART FIVE. The Recession and Preparation
Yeah… well, I’m nowhere close to being done. In French class (7th per.) I took another practice AP exam. In CS2 (8th per.) - that’s Computer Science 2, not a reference to a Photoshop version I am fond of - we underwent a grueling review session that took the entire period. Today, after I came home from school, I spent my afternoon forum surfing, and the rest of the night with Steven doing some worksheets over GridWorld (the new MBCS) for the APCS test tomorrow. Wish us luck?
My EXAM SCHEDULE
Monday, May 5th @ 8am - AP Government DONE
Tuesday, May 6th @ 8am - AP Computer Science A DONE
Wednesday, May 7th @ 8am - AP Calculus AB DROPPED
Thursday, May 7th @ 8am - AP English Literature DONE
Thursday, May 7th @ 12pm - AP French Literature DONE
Monday, May 12th @ 8am Late testing - AP Biology DONE
Monday, May 12th @ 12pm Late testing - AP Physics C DONE
Thursday, May 15th @ 8am Late testing - AP Macroeconomics DONE