My last A.P. exam is finally over. For three of my classes, the whole year has been centered on learning, getting good grades and preparing for these exams. The morning of exam day I woke up and the first thing I thought of was, “gee, I probably should’ve listened to Mr. Miller.” I was not completely stressed out, but I would be lying if I said I had a good eight hours of sleep. I was at Cedar Point for the entire day Tuesday because it was Physics Day. I did not realize the Cedar Point trip was the day before the AP English Language exam when I initially signed up and paid for tickets. I guess it was poor planning on my part because I had all my AP exams marked on my calendar, yet I did not check the calendar to see if the physics trip was conflicting with anything.

I ended up making the best of the situation. Of course I was not totally exhausted Wednesday morning, but I would like to have slept a little more. I had to make the best of the situation, so I took a teaspoon of ginseng tea in its most potent form, which gave me plenty of energy for the next few hours. I also took 120mg of ginkgo to enhance my mental alertness.
I arrived at the testing facility (the WEC) ten minutes before the suggested arrival time. There was a constant pool of students spilling in, but it was apparent that the Thomas students largely outnumbered the Kilbourne students. It was great to still see several familiar faces to break the pre-exam tension. Immediately after entering the exam room, I was glad I dressed in layers, since the temperature was rather cool inside.

Once inside and situated, it was time to wait until the proctors were ready to administer the exam. There were the usual jokes about the flaws in the College Board system, and how there are so many ways for people to cheat that they have not addressed. The seat I was instructed to sit at was directly next to the clock, which was a pleasant surprise to me. However, I later learned that the clock was taped to the window with masking tape, and would periodically fall off. There were several other flaws in the administration of the exam.

The proctors administering the AP exams in Worthington need to be trained to properly administer standardized tests. The first issue with the exam was the testing environment itself. There were far too many students in the testing room, so the student’s desks were placed too close together, resulting in discomfort during the exam. Also, there were no aisle ways to travel horizontally across the room, so students were constantly distracted when they needed to make room for people leaving the room. The proctors were very rude and terse while giving instructions, snapping stern commands to the students, which added pressure to the testing environment. During the test itself, the proctors would stand over individual students’ shoulders for prolonged periods of time, which distracted many students. There was also a discrepancy between the three clocks in the room. They all showed different times, so it was difficult to figure out exactly how much time was remaining.

Although there were many flaws in the administration of the exam, the experience was not as terrible as it may sound. The multiple-choice section of the exam was not as difficult as I had expected it to be. The first section was the hardest, and each subsequent section became easier. I paced myself relatively well, because I finished my last question about thirty seconds before time was up. During the practice tests in class, I usually finished about five minutes behind schedule. The essay prompts were also easy for me to understand and relate to. One of the prompts was about corporate partnerships and advertising in the school setting. I have been working with administrators over the past couple weeks to try and convince them to open up to more sponsorship opportunities, so I had plenty of ideas on what to write about. I spent most of my time analyzing the passage for the prompt that required me to identify rhetorical strategies used in the passage. The provided passage used a wide variety of techniques to further its message. I believe I effectively analyzed the significance of the strategies used, but I may not have identified every strategy with its technical term. The third prompt was a synthesis essay on whether the penny should be removed from the U.S. currency or not. I decided it would be easier to argue that it should be removed. The prompt was a little unclear, so I did not like the question. I spent the least time on that question, because I believe I had the potential for a higher score for the other two essays than for the penny essay. I ended up using all the time given for the essays. I finished on time, but I tried to utilize every minute given to me.

Our group finished the test almost an hour behind schedule. After the administration was over, everything wrapped up pretty quickly. Aside from the poor administration of the exam, everything else went rather smoothly. The exam itself was not as difficult as I expected, but that doesn’t imply that it was easy.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Umang Patel at 9:54 PM