The culmination of advanced placement classes in the form of hours of frantic test taking and bubble filling is a “stressful and exhausting” time, according to senior Deidre Yiu.
“The week dragged on forever!” concurred junior Carly Reilly. “Just when I was finished with one test, it seemed like there was another one lurking on the horizon.”
The exams, however, take place almost a month before school lets out, leaving AP teachers the luxury of weeks to teach what they want, free of the pressures of strenuous and fast-paced advanced placement curriculums.
“Teachers try to give us a break after the tests,” explained junior Henry Lee. “My AP Chemistry class, for example, is really intense. After the AP everyone is so relieved…it’s nice to take things slow for once. I know a lot of classes watch movies at the end of the year and do other things that they might not have had time to do before the exam.”
“Most AP classes do big end-of-the-year projects,” added Yu. “In AP Calculus AB, we’re doing a project called ‘Ten Things I Love About Calculus.’” Playing off the admission video ‘Ten Things I Love About Deerfield,’ “we’re still learning in class, even though we aren’t preparing for the AP.”
Math and science courses, however, are unusual in their strict adherence to the AP curriculum. History teacher Julia Rivellino-Lyons, on the other hand, vocalized the sentiment of many history and English teachers.
“We’re not specifically an AP class, and we value the autonomy that gives us throughout the year,” she said.
Now that her students have the pressure of the AP exam behind them, they are currently working on a more creative extended study. Mrs. Rivelino-Lyons’ two-week “Artifacts of the American Century’ project is one of the inventive ways “hat AP teachers take advantage of the time remain-ing in the school year.