The end of school is coming. Unfortunately, with that comes the most dreaded thing in the world, Advanced Placement tests.

Students have been preparing all year for this, and most of us are now wondering why in the world we are taking these tests? Around this time, the panic attacks begin and the realization sets in that we are not prepared. While this is not true for every AP class, many times students are not prepared for these tests.

However, this is not necessarily the teachers fault, sometimes it is caused by the course in general.

For instance, one must look at AP U.S. History. In this class, students must cram 300 years of history into their brain. These facts students will be tested over can range anywhere from normal, general knowledge things, like James Madison is known as the father of the Constitution, to obscure facts that do not matter at all such as the fact that Jonathan Edwards wrote Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. 

Now personally, I did not learn the second fact in my class. Instead, I needed to buy flashcards and a separate study book and then study for three hours just to drill this one fact into my mind. And yet, this one, useless fact may not even be on the AP test.

The problem with these AP tests is that they cover too much information. As a result, it is impossible to be fully prepared for the test.

College Board is trying to fix some of these things, like shortening the amount of information AP Biology covers. However, other classes, like APUSH, are not being shortened. This just makes me feel sorry for the future APUSH students, since history is always being made and thus they will need to cram even more than I had too.

Furthermore, classes, like AP Government, were shortened to a semester. Now, if students want to succeed on the AP test, it is recommended that students take Constitutional Law. Yet, the AP class is supposed to adequately prepare one for the test without needing another non-AP class.

Also, if someone wants to succeed on a test, one usually needs to splurge on study books, and study for hours outside of class along with that person’s hours of homework.

To change this, College Board should divide up certain classes into two different classes. With some classes it is inevitable, like APUSH or AP Bio, because new information is always being made or discovered. Furthermore, with AP Biology, dividing the class in two would keep the curriculum from being gutted.

However, with classes like APUSH and AP Psychology, specifying to an extent of what the test will focus on will be beneficial. Students would not need to study every detail of the past 300 years for APUSH and they would not need to memorize every symptom of every obscure mental disease for AP Psychology.

Instead of cramming pointless information into students minds for the upcoming AP tests, students should be able to focus on the larger concepts to further their understanding of those things. Then when the AP tests come around, students would not show up to school with bag-filled eyes, frazzled hair and panic attacks. Instead they would show up exuding confidence.