Students Share Stress, Strategies After AP Exam Season

HUDSON— With AP exams wrapped up, students at Hudson High School start reflecting on their experiences and how challenging they really were.

AP exams took place from May 4 to May 15. The AP exams are end-of-year standardized tests from the College Board. They are used to measure students’ understanding of college-level material taught in high school classes.

“When you start the class in September, it feels like the AP exam isn’t really a real thing because it’s so far in the future, but it comes up really fast. So you really have to, from day one, try to be focused,” senior Jason Blake said.

Studying for an AP exam can be a burden for many.

“Pretty stressful. I had been steadily studying throughout the year, and when the exam was only a few days away, I kind of crammed a lot more in, and it really stressed me out,” sophomore Phoenix MacNeil said.

Many students have to balance the AP classes workload with extracurricular activities.

“I do track, also I did football too, so like, I balanced it pretty well. I still studied after practices and stuff after games,” junior Tayvon Meuse said. “It wasn’t hard at all.”

There are many different reasons a student might decide to take an AP class.

“I had a girlfriend. She was gonna take it, I was like, oh, I’ll take it with you. And then we broke up, but I never actually dropped it. But it was nice, and I had some friends who were taking it. So it was like a win-win situation,” Meuse said.

Students would come up with different strategies to stay on top of schoolwork.

“I tend to break my day into schedules, and I like to write down everything that I do. I have an agenda book,” senior Jackson Deveney said.

Some strategies were more unconventional than others.

“I found this one game on Roblox. It’s called AP Study Game, and you can study for your AP. It has a bunch of different APs that you could study for,” said Meuse.

Many students may be wary about taking an AP class, but students who have taken them encourage students to give it a shot.

“Some advice, I would say, is to just get yourself out there. Sometimes it’ll feel like an overbearing amount of work, but it really is rewarding and is the classes that I’ve learned the most in.” Deveney said.