This year, Carlmont administrators are placing emphasis on the fact that students taking AP classes still have to take a final exam after completing the AP test.
In previous years, students were basically done with their AP class once they took the AP exam. The rest of the year and especially finals week was easier, knowing they had finished all the preparation and testing to get college credit.
It was never a rule that AP students are not expected to have a final exam. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
By school board policy, every course should have a final examination.
Instructional Vice Principal Robert Fishtrom said, “The precedent in Carlmont culture was that it was okay not to have a final exam in AP classes. It has always been a rule that every course, by board policy, should have a final examination.”
Some would argue that AP students were let off too easy with no final exam. They got to skate through the last month of school with no real motivation.
Current senior Christina Rice commented, “AP students should get some sort of break. They work so hard all year.”
Although having no final exam seems to let the AP students off too easy, it is absolutely fair because the students have spent the previous seven months cramming and preparing for a grueling test.
The purpose of taking an AP class is to pass the AP test, so once the test is over, it should not be mandatory to take a final exam.
And it’s not necessarily true that students slack off after they have taken the AP test. In many AP classes, teachers assign projects and long term assignments that still have an impact on the students’ grade and motivate them enough to continue working diligently.
Fishtrom commented, “I do not think AP teachers slack off at all. I just think it was the culture of Carlmont not to give a final. I think they provide a very rigorous curriculum.
Students who have prepared all year to pass the AP test should be allowed to have some sort of relief after the AP test is finished.
The purpose of a final exam is to test students on the curriculum they have learned all year. The same definition applies to AP exams. A student can pass the AP exam by studying the curriculum they learned all year.
Therefore, is a final exam really necessary?
No, in essence, the AP exam and a final exam are the same thing; they both test students on accumulative knowledge from the whole year.
