by Reid Heavner,
Staff Writer.
At the end of every semester comes the inevitably dreaded week: finals. Teachers are obliged to give a cumulative test reviewing the content covered over the course of the entire semester. Students, doing the very best to keep their grades afloat, run on caffeine as they power through toward the winter break. The biggest exception to this is Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Different AP classes take different stances on whether or not they should give semester finals, but testing in AP classes should only be for AP practice.
Since AP classes use such a rigid format, they cannot afford to deviate from the standard AP curriculum by giving extra tests. AP classes focus on months of intensive, quick study — at what is theoretically a college level — and then one giant test towards the end of the year. The AP style of intense study relies on using every available day of class, and testing takes away from that. However, preparations for the final AP test is a core part of classes and should be integrated into in-class testing. As senior Jason Dennis put it, “Semester tests would be good overall prep for the AP exam as long as it is composed of past AP exam questions.” There just isn’t time in a tight AP schedule for external curriculum.
Fundamentally, this comes down to the question of how much AP classes should tailor to the test. Since the AP tests are designed to help students learn a set curriculum that most colleges agree should be taught at that level, tailoring to the test should logically also provide all of the learning that students would expect from the same class at a collegiate level. Dennis believes that “the end goal of AP classes is to do well on the test so the class itself should reflect that.” He acknowledged that the classes are still in a regular high school format, adding that “a healthy balance between a test-focused curriculum and a classroom style is best in my eyes.”
Whether or not they offer a semester final is up to each individual teacher, but there are undeniable drawbacks to semester finals in AP courses.
