Advanced Placement classes are demanding, and the College Board tests that students take at the end of the year are even harder. The main reason why students enroll in an AP class is because they want to have an opportunity to gain college credit so they will not have to take the class in college. The classes can help save students thousands of dollars. The exam tests students on all of the information they learned throughout the year.
All of these facts can support the opinion that AP students should not be required to take a final exam.
One reason that supports the opinion that AP students should not be required to take a final is because they are already taking a test that will be based on all of the information accumulated throughout the year. One article, North Pointe Now, shows the pros and cons of taking a final exam and it supports the idea that the College Board Exam is just like a final but harder. ¨Not only is the information being assessed very similar on both exams, but the idle hours following the AP exam could potentially pose a problem with remembering specific information for a final. ¨ Asking students to remember certain details for the College Board test but other, separate details for the final is too demanding of an ask. Not requiring a final can help lift some stress off of the students shoulders and allow them to feel less pressured going into their College Board exam.
Another reason that supports the idea that AP students should not be required to take a final is it would also teacher. The Green Pride, the news site for De Soto High School, wrote about the same topic and reveals that ¨teachers would have less to grade and be able to focus on other finals, thus lowering stress for both students and teachers.¨
Teachers already have enough work to grade and lessons to plan for students and especially AP Teachers. Their whole goal is to set their students up for success when they take the AP test and when they go into college. If teachers do not require a final, then it is one less test that they have to grade.
Some may say that taking a final at the end of the semester is beneficial because it helps students retain the information and help them practice the material even more so they become extra prepared. North Pointe Now, the student news source of Grosse Pointe North High School, states that, ¨Not only does having a final promote preparation and better studying, it also gives students the chance to understand the content in a new way.¨ If the final is taken before the College Board test then it would be an additional resource to help students prepare for the exam. However, the information on the final will only be beneficial if the final is assigned before and not after the exam. If the final was required after, students would feel unmotivated and could risk scoring low because they do not feel the need to study.
Students in AP classes should not be required to take a final after the AP test because students have already demonstrated how well they know material based on their grade in the class and the effort they put into studying for the College Board test at the end of the year.
