Last Saturday, English 3 AP students took a mock AP test organized by Mr. Spanier and Mr. Silvey. With the actual test on May 9, students were eager to further their test preparations. So from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., students took the test and eventually stayed longer to grade the essays and receive their final score.

“I hope students will see where they are strong, what they are doing well and, if needed, locate an area of weakness that they have a week and a half to focus on–whether its multiple choice or a specific type of writing, it’s time to identify what [the weakness] is and work on it,” Spanier said. “The whole year has been about rigorous reading and analyzing what we are reading. Now, we are focusing on what that looks like on a test.”

For most students, the main worry was time; the multiple choice represents a challenge as students must read difficult passages and answer more than 50 questions in an hour. After a quick break, they are expected to write three essays within two hours. With this daunting task in mind, the mock test allowed students to examine the successfulness of their test-taking strategies.

“The test wasn’t that bad; it is really good practice for what the actual AP test is going to be like. It was not fun to sit around for an hour doing multiple choice and then two hours for three essays–it’s all time management. The hardest part was thinking of ideas for writing in the essays and then writing them in 40 minutes,” junior Samantha Avalos said. “I wanted to get more prepared for the AP test because it’s in 2 weeks, and it is important to prepare in other ways than studying on your own.”

After the mock test, students took a break for lunch and then graded the essays. Following the method AP graders employ, only two minutes were spent grading each essay. To ensure students got an accurate score, each essay was graded five times, and the scores were averaged.

“[Grading] really gave me the feel of the conditions the readers have to go through–I never knew how short two minutes were until the first essay that I graded,” junior Gary Luo said. “I probably read about half of it and then he called time … it tells me that I have to make it so that in [the grader’s] first reading, they get what I am trying to say.”

After completing and grading the mock test, students felt greater confidence in the tackling the actual AP test.

“The mock test helped me learn how to budget my time better and know what part I need to work better on,” junior Cassidy Mayer said. “I am less stressed now.”