Online AP Exams Through The Eyes of A Senior

As a senior graduating with 10 APs I did not expect the last four AP Exams to pose a challenge. But I was wrong. Taking my exams virtually appeared to be a challenge: not enough time, hardly any material covered, inability to write and take notes. These new challenges were completely unprepared for. I tremendously studied for my AP Lit exam ,  As an A-student in class, I received nothing but top scores for my essays. Adept at critical analysis, I succeeded mostly in annotating assigned passages.. Before, I prepared for a test with much more material cover along with more time. What I ended up taking consisted of one passage analysis, within 50 minutes, and a huge learning curve of understanding the new platform. 

The first virtual exam I have ever taken and my entire AP Lit credit depended on my success. The pressure was not willing to leave. I needed to read my passage without taking notes on it—which already seemed like a challenge enough. Additionally, I had to turn the essay in five minutes before time ran out, or else my essay would not submit! As if the process wasn’t easy enough, the highlight of my experience consisted of trying to submit my essay and having the format change in the text-box, going back and forth between changing the spacing. I also needed to make sure my essay looked right, with the AP number on top along with my initials. What one may forget to realize when taking the test virtually is that, if the AP number and initials are in the header it cannot be copy and pasted, forcing me to waste time on correcting that formatting error as well. 

I hope to have people acknowledge that if AP scores come back lower than expected, it may not have resulted from a lack of excellent work, but rather many inconveniences faced during this new digital experience.