The end of the year is drawing near, and that means AP exams are coming first. Blissful hours of filling in bubble sheets and writing essays. Blissful isn’t quite the word, but it might be for students who sleep through the standardized testing. Slapping a positive word on the front of the phrase “AP Exam” doesn’t make it any better, though.

  After a year of frenzied studying, half-finished prep books, and sleepless nights, students are more than ready to take the test, just to get it behind them. It’s true that the exams are like the ACT, just focused on one subject. Taking the test is an exhausting process, and by half time most students are ready to call it quits, never mind the 3 essays that are left. Yet, after that, despite the student’s preference, the students have to go back to school to finish the day in a dazed state of half-awareness.

  “I don’t think it’s really fair,” said Brittanee White, a junior. “I don’t want to go back to class after sitting in the same room for over three hours and testing about the mitochondria!”

  This is an opinion shared by many AP students, and it’s within reasonable grounds. You can only read so many graphs in a day and still be functional. Would you not want to go home and wind down after the climax of an entire year of studying?

  “It’s hard enough doing anything after an ACT, and the subjects are spread out then,” said Christal Regehr. “AP exams are over an entire course that’s squeezed into the time span of a high school schedule.”

  AP classes are draining, and after the test the last thing on anyones’ mind is going back to school and studying other materials. Give the kids a break, they deserve it.

  “I wish they would let us leave early, though,” said White. “I’m ready for a break.”