Because the Advanced Placement (AP) exams and final exams are all within the same few weeks, Woodbridge High students who are already taking the regular finals must also take the additional AP testing, forcing them to take 2 high-stakes and high-pressure tests in a very short period of time.
This creates overwhelming pressure for students. Researchers of Penn State University, Susanne Koudela-Hamila, Joshua Smyth, Philip Santangelo, and Ulrich Ebner-Priemer found that “examination periods are not only associated with indicators of dysphoria, stress, and social withdrawal but also with altered physiological processes.”
This study clearly reflected many Woodbridge AP students as they’re currently in a high-tension study situation that causes negative effects that are both mental and physical.
“It [Finals and AP testing] being so close together is making me stressed due to the fact that I don’t have a lot of time to study and the pressure it has on me is undoubtedly large,” said freshman Ryan Jeon.
actual Woodbridge high school students. The layering of the work channels the appearance of
layers of work, as it creates the illusion of school being a full time 9-5 office job which further
emphasizes the heavy workload discussed, especially at this time of the year with the inclusion of final exams, projects, AP’s students are faced with too much to handle for their mental well beings. We included homework from many different subjects like math, english, science and history to showcase that the gigantic workload can’t be attributed to just one class but rather all classes combined.
Some students argue that it’s better to get testing over with and the best way to do that is to cram it all into one week. In the article, “Does cramming for your exams actually work?” by Chloe Lane, she says one pro to cramming is “allow you to remember information in the short term.”
That can be true but if students have multiple finals to study for sometimes they don’t have enough time to study for all classes which can hurt them and their test scores. Students here at Woodbridge high school feel the tests as “super stressful, you know, having the big final test of the year jam packed into a little period. When you’re thinking about summer and everything, I think it’s, uh, just super stressful” freshman Herman Lopez said.
Many students all across the world feel like this, they feel extremely stressed and exhausted. Some students feel hopeless when it comes to these tests. In the Article “The effectiveness
vs. non-effectiveness of finals” by Soma Patra, it states “finals are set over the course of one hectic week, where students are forced to study for multiple, if not all, of their classes.” This shows how students are expected to study for most if not all classes in as many as 2-3 days, and in those 2-3 days they also have school and they have practice and other extracurriculars. This shows the overload students carry multiple times a year.
Considering everything we have discussed there has to be a better way to set up exams that would help students better prepare themselves for their exams and manage any overall stress that comes with them.
Daniella Ruiz, a sophomore at Woodbridge high school taking 2 AP tests said,“I think three or four weeks before finals would give you enough time to actually study for, like your AP’s.
and then have enough time to actually study for your actual other classes that are not that.”
Woodbridge High school student, specifically from their Chinese class and math. The image depicts just home much homework one student may receive from just a few classes on a daily basis this time of year.This goes to show just how much is expected of students at such a stressful yet important time of year. The messiness of the papers covering the desk represents just how disorganized this time is for students, which is a big representation of the school system and its effect on students.
By making these exams more spread out in such a way is essential to students ability to pass as they are given more time to study for every class, as well as having a less intense effect on students mental health, as many students tend to have much stress and anxiety during the weeks of testing; this doesn’t mean there’s essentially less stress but it gives more time to destress.
An article on the Davenport post tells students preparing for exams wrote,“ Ensuring you make time to rest will help you be more focused when it’s time to take the exam. All the time and effort you put into studying will pay off.”
There are plenty of different ways you can destress in this time whether its reading a book, meditating or hanging out with friends make sure you make time for your needs . Going back to the schedule there are great effects on teachers as they can have tests spread out in such a way that wouldn’t put as much pressure on them to grade hundreds of students work in a small timeline. So it’s overall a great idea for everyone.
