By the time May rolls around and AP students have spent months grinding through dense, and boring textbooks, lecture heavy classes and countless practice questions and responses, the AP exam marks a clear finish line. So why, after students have poured everything into that one high stakes, stress inducing test, are many still expected to keep doing work in the class post exam, often work that feels useless? I don’t think they should, but rather AP classes should transition into tutorials after the exam, providing students with a much more meaningful and low-pressure learning, rather than more busywork assignments.
The AP exam is designed to assess a year’s worth of learning in one sitting. It’s the reason many students enroll in these rigorous classes in the first place. They spend the year stressed out, balancing AP workloads with other classes, sports, jobs and personal lives. Once the test is over, the motivation to keep pushing through traditional coursework is gone with little hesitation. What purpose does post exam homework and classwork really serve when the main goal of the class and workload, the exam, is behind them?
That’s not to say the time should be wasted, rather used in a more meaningful way. Post exam time could be used as a tutorial period. Students could prepare for finals in non AP classes, dive deeper into topics of personal interest or even just get more work done efficiently so they have more personal time outside of school. Teachers could offer workshops on writing, study skills or how to apply their class in real world scenarios, which are things students actually want and need to learn, but rarely have time for during the school year.
The counterargument makes sense, where some say it’s a waste to have students “do nothing” for several weeks, or even up to a month. While there is truth in that, there is also the idea that school isn’t just about the one major exam, rather it’s about developing discipline and critical thinking skills for the future. But forcing students to continue with regular classwork, just for the sake of routine and not wasting time, misses the bigger, more important picture of developing us as human beings, not just students.
Students aren’t lazy for wanting a break after a tiring and stress inducing exam. Giving them space to breathe while still offering valuable and flexible learning isn’t lowering the bar, but it’s being realistic and gracious of their efforts throughout the year. Reimagining the post exam period, not as an afterthought with loads of work, but as a chance to finally make learning relaxed and stress free will not only boost the morale of students, but give them more time to do other things.
