AP Testing in May

Millions of students nationwide took the AP tests from May 5th - May 16th, 2025. AP classes are courses offered by many schools, which can be used as credits at certain colleges if a high enough score is earned on the test at the end of the year. The tests are graded on a scale of 1-5, and are made up of different multiple choice, free response and essay questions. There are currently 40 different AP classes, with some of the most popular being Psychology, Environmental Science, US History and English Literature.

Throughout the year, students learn the curriculum for these college level courses, based in the branch AP Classroom of the College Board organization. Here, teachers can assign practice questions, videos, lessons and quizzes. You can choose to directly follow the units created by the College Board, or teachers can construct their class differently, but all students take the same test at the end of the year.

“Some teachers may not teach the content in the exact order.  Some units may take longer than suggested.  My students take the AP Macroeconomics exam, but I also introduce various microeconomic concepts along the way which lengthens some units.  The biggest challenge is planning what to do after the AP exam.  If any economics students are reading this, we will not be watching the Wolf of Wall street,” NHS AP Economics teacher Bobby Pattison said.

At NHS, AP classes are offered sophomore through senior year, with more being available for juniors and seniors. For sophomores, the only AP class offered is Human Geography, which students can select as their social studies class for the year. NHS junior Maddie Marcisz took AP Human Geography her sophomore year.

            “I loved AP Hug (Human Geography). Mr. Ferrier is one of the best teachers in the entire school, and truly does all he can to ensure that students perform well. AP Hug was the perfect starter AP - it was a lot of work, but not too overwhelming, letting me get accustomed to AP style classes and preparing me for the future,” Marcisz said.

Juniors have more options for AP courses, but many choose to take English Language and Composition (AP Lang), AP US History (APUSH) or AP Physics. The years these classes are offered depend on the school, and region of the country, but 11th grade is generally the most common for these classes.

“AP Lang is kinda a love-hate thing for me. You actually learn how to take your feelings and apply them to someone else's work, which is way more useful than just memorizing information like you would for other AP Classes,” NHS junior Amanda Faircloth said.

“The test takes these concepts and has you apply them in a time constraint which can be quite challenging. Despite this stress associated with the exam, the overall experience has significantly grown my writing abilities.”

Many AP classes are offered for seniors at NHS, with students taking a wide variety of classes, usually based on what colleges or careers they have begun to consider for after high school. NHS senior Bennett Quinn is looking to go into a career in STEM, so he took AP Calculus AB this year. He will be attending Northeastern University in the fall, and he can redeem this math class for credit if he scores a 4 or a 5 on the exam.

“I took AP Calc to hopefully get credit for Calc 1 in college and skip right to calc 2. I've been studying non stop for the AP test so that I don't have to relearn everything in the fall,” Quinn said.

Tests are graded and reported by a series of teachers who taught the class, often giving nearly 1000 tests to a single teacher to be graded. This, as well as ensuring a fair grading process takes several months, so AP results are typically not released until the beginning of July.