Let’s first address the elephant in the room: I am NOT writing this article out of bitterness, but more so to serve as a public service announcement to all incoming juniors, to anyone having the smallest consideration to schedule multiple exams and to hopefully help poor unfortunate should from falling victim to College Board’s version of the Hunger Games… Two exams on the same day.
Now, onto my qualifications:
This past school year, I’ve taken four AP courses: AP Calculus AB, AP English Language and Composition, AP Physics 1, and AP Psychology. You can read more about each class in “The Ultimate Guide to AP/Honors Classes” on the Shield. My demise, however, arose from ironically one of my favorite classes, and the College Board’s more notoriously challenging AP exams, AP Psychology and AP Physics 1, with a whopping 47.3% pass rate!
Setting the Scene:
It was May 16, 2025, I awoke bright and early at 6:30 am to prepare for the long day ahead by making myself breakfast, brushing my teeth, and having my poor mom—who at this point had woken up at 5 am this week for all of the other exams—wake up to take me to the exam room. Funny story, this particular day, I had been dreading since summer before junior year, because registration had already been completed, and College Board releases the exam testing schedule in early July, coupled with AP scores. In psychology, one of the theories we learn are General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which stands for alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. It explains that the body enters an alarmed state from either a stimulus or something in your environment (in my caue alarm was the awareness of the AP exam), then resistance. The second stage, Resistance, is the response in which the body makes attempts to keep the brain/body in a homeostatic state, meaning it keeps you from crashing out (in my case this would be the time for both exams). Then exhaustion, it sounds exactly like what it stands for, after the stressor is gone, your body gets out of the “fight or flight” state and RELAXES (for many of my peers and me this was the saturday after AP exams).
What I learned from this:
This year has been a challenge. For anyone, if you take more than three AP classes, you’re probably going to have a unit exam every week to every other week which is something I for sure wasn’t used to. There is going to be a lot of independent working time for you to practice which should be utilized efficiently. Do practice problems, study in groups, work together, there are multitudes of different ways to study and please please PLEASE make sure that anyone reading this that you know what you’re signing up for. For any upcoming Junior or even Sophomore, keep in mind that everyone has different academic rigor and it definitely is possible to have multiple AP classes, however, just keep in mind that you will be taking on a work load that may not come in the form of busy work, but more individual study time.
Closing Remark:
This article isn’t meant to scare anyoneanyonoe out of taking multiple Honors/AP classes, but to genuinely serve as a personal insight into what having multiple exams on one day looks like, and to give advice to anyone who is considering this.
If you’re going to take anything away from this article read this:
1. Know yourself, are you going to be able to make time on top of extracurriculars for studying
2. LOOK AT THE COLLEGE BOARD’S WEBSITE TO SEE THE EXAM SCHEDULE BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS
3. Don’t let anyone discourage you from taking any class or exam, sure it’s a lot of work but you got this!
4. Be ready.