After studying in a classroom for 10 months for what takes at least a year to learn, students wake up in the wee hours of the morning to take a college level test. No pressure, but if you fail you’ve wasted $93.

Preferably the events in the testing classroom would go smoothly and according to plan but the environment was unorganized and the administrators didn’t seem prepared. No one’s assigned seat was in alphabetical order, so when the tests were picked up it took 20 minutes to reorganize them. After testing for three hours and 25 minutes no one wanted to sit for five minutes, let alone 20. Students were antsy, hungry and ready to get out of that small room. There was also a lack of tests so an administrator had to go and get more from another room, so starting and ending took longer than needed.

While taking the test you are on a strict time limit. There is 55 minutes for 55 questions. Passages are given for every three or four questions that you must read, comprehend, then answer a question that doesn’t relate to the passage as well as you would like it to. Then there is 50 minutes for four short answer responses and finally there is an hour and a half for a document based question and a long essay question. An administrator is in charge of keeping time and giving a count down. During the AP Human Geography test I took last year the countdown went down to a minute as well as the practice AP Human Geography test and practice AP World History test. The administrator only gave a countdown to 10 minutes, so many students didn’t answer all their questions, believing that there was still at least a minute left. There was not enough time given for everything you must do and not a sufficient countdown.

Yes, it is a college level test and they should be strict, but it is taken by young freshmen and sophomores. Students have studied all year and know the material, but don’t have enough time to show what they know.

The AP test was unorganized and not set up in a convenient manner, it doesn’t give students enough time and there was not enough communication of time between the administrator and test takers. Next year seating in alphabetical order, bringing all the tests in at once and counting down to one minute would make the AP experience more bearable and less stressful for teachers and students.