1

Matthew Winson

4/19/18

Mrs. Hanson

Period 2

First AP, Time to Go Crazy

Advanced Placement tests are a staple of Wootton high school that create the largest

amounts of studying and stress students will face during their time in high school. Students learn

all of the material starting at the beginning of the school year and ending right after spring break.

Then for the next month, the students recall of the th material they have learned over the past 7

months. Upperclassmen have the experience when studying for their AP tests because they know

how long it take and how much they need to study due to their prior experience, but for

underclassmen, this is a whole new world. I was able to see the preparing in action in Mrs.

Fevronia Cresham Humanities AP National, State & Local (NSL) Government class.

AP NSL is the first AP for the majority of students at Wootton high school ,so this is the

AP class where all of the freshmen and sophomores would be. It involves a new type of

note-taking and a new type of thinking that the underclassmen have never experienced before. I

looked at a Humanities and Arts class specifically because the majority of these students enjoy

and excel better at humanities type classes including the social sciences. I took this class as a

sophomore, so I know the amount of work it takes to get a 5, which is the highest possible score

on the exam. I also had Mrs. Cresham as a teacher, which may make it seem like I would be bias

towards her as a teacher, but I knew I had to come into this classroom knowing that all of these
 2

students may have different opinions from me, so I had to ignore my personal feelings about the

class.

AP NSL at Wootton and in Montgomery Country is different from the rest of the country

as it is a class for freshmen and sophomores, while in most states it is for seniors. Mrs. Cresham

told me “NSL is taught senior year because most of those kids will be able to vote that year or

the next year but Montgomery County does this differently as one of the first AP’s because it is a

more accessible AP class for freshmen.” It is usually taught for seniors at it talks about

government and elections, which the seniors will be able to participate in that year or the year

after. Montgomery County does it differently than most of the country because it involves a

different type of thinking compared to other social studies AP classes. According to Mrs.

Cresham, it is easier for underclassmen because “AP NSL is a lot more of conceptual based class

where other classes like AP World History is more about details and the facts.” At this point in

the year, Mrs. Cresham’s class was wrapping up the last unit before starting AP review. This unit

was on economic policy, which to me was one of the more different units because all of the

concepts about the budgets all seemed confusing to me.

When I first sat down in Mrs. Cresham’s seventh period class, I noticed something very

interesting about the seating arrangements of the students. Mrs. Cresham gave the students the

option of choosing their seats at the beginning of the semester and the students seemed to sit in a

racially and gender specific way. Looking from the back of the room, the majority of the right

side of the room were caucasian girls that were for the most part freshmen, but this class had

more freshmen than sophomores. There were of course other people of different races on that

side, but they were still all females. The left side of the room was divided into two parts as well.
 3

Closest to the wall and farthest away from where I was sitting were all of the male students in the

class. The majority of them were of Asian descent, but there were other people as well. Then, on

the side closer to where I was sitting, that entire group was mainly Asian and all female. The

class seemed to first split up by gender, and then split up by race. I knew the students split up to

sit with their friends, but it seemed that the students sat around people that they are comfortable

with. One of the guys, sophomore Josh Levine, thought the same thing when he chose his seat.

“Mrs. Cresham gave us free seating and I guess all of the people that knew each other all sat

together, but it looks like a bunch of different ethnic groups of people” Josh said. Josh just sat

down randomly in a seat because he does not have any close friends in the class. Mrs. Cresham

only noticed that “all of the freshmen sit together on one side of the room” when I asked her

about the free seating.

The first day I sat down in the class, the girl to my left asked a friend if she was a

competent human being, which made me think of all of the ways that my friends and I make fun

of each other. The class initially started with a warmup about the American fiscal policy, which

is what the class learned the day before I sat in the class. The large group of girls on the right

side of the room seemed super intent on having their own conversations, while the boys and the

rest of the girls on the other side of the room were quiet and respectfully doing their work. Mrs.

Cresham is more focused on doing the attendance and answering her emails, while half of the

class did not even do the warm up. WHen Mrs. Cresham first gets up from her computer, she

starts the class. The first thing to go over is what the homework is for the rest of the week. They

have their current event article, which is an article that about a current news story that relates to

the unit. The students can turn it in from when it is assigned to the day of the test of that unit.
 4

The class as a whole had only have about 5 papers turned in even though the test was coming up

that week.

Mrs. Cresham starts going over the warm up and starts calling on the girls on the right

side of the room. She gets upset when looking at their papers seeing now that they did not do

what they were supposed to do. She gives them a stern look, which looked to me like a sign of

the disappointment she had in them. After that, she turns toward the other side of the room to the

people that she definitely knows did the work. She first calls on Ivy, a girl with glasses, who

jumped out of her seat when she was called on. The question is if the government controls any

part of the economy and Ivy just sits there mumbling “uh…” until Ivy guesses that it does. While

Mrs. Cresham continues to go over the warmup, two freshmen girls in the back look confused

and constantly question each other about questions on the warmup and possibly other classes that

they might have together.

The next part of the class, Mrs. Cresham goes over the notes for the upcoming class.

While she is speaking, the majority of the class is taking notes or just listening, but there are

people scattered all around the room who are more focused on the work they just picked up at the

beginning of class. Mrs. Cresham does not seem to notice because all of these kids are hiding

behind people who are paying attention to the class. Every time Mrs. Cresham asks a question,

there seems to be the same people who answer to questions every time. One tall, Asian guy n the

back of the room on the left side knows the answer to every question that Mrs. Cresham asks.

The guys in front of him in the same row are the “jokesters” of the class and when called on,

give answers that are right, but involve them constantly laughing at each other.
 5

The class then moves into the worksheets that they picked up at the beginning of class,

but were being worked on by some of the girls on the left side of the room. The class gets pretty

noisy because everyone is sitting around their friends and is something that students just

naturally do in class. What surprised me was that the majority of the conversations were about

the classwork and not about what they did the last weekend for fun. One girl asks her friend

Maya about how interest rates work. The girls o]in the back right continue to ask each other

questions. The class seems to stay on task even when they are not being instructed by their

teacher. Most people would not do their work and just talk, but these students seem very focused

on their work and most of the time on task.

After working for about ten minutes on their worksheet, Mrs. Cresham is ready to go

over it. Every question that involves fiscal policy is quickly answered as soon as the question is

asked. Mrs. Cresham is so satisfied with the answers that she tells them that they definitely know

more about fiscal policy than their parents do and ever will. This brings out a ton of laughter

from the students as Mrs. Cresham gives them lots of confidence.

The next task is for the class to write sample FRQ or essays that involve the unit hat they

are working on. The room gets quiet in an instant when they are working, but the two girls in the

back right are still talking to each other about their work. Frm what I could tell, they must have

been good friends because they would constantly talk to each other throughout the entire class.

While they are working, one girl has to leave early from class, so Mrs. Cresham gives her some

sample essays of the prompt they are writing about ans tells here to score them using the rubric.

She does the same thing in class with the rest of the students who have to share papers with each
 6

and go over the sample essays for the rest of class. They have to prepare for their final test of the

year, which is the next day I came in to sit on the class.

When the class first walked in on test day, Mrs. Cresham went over what the class will be

doing for AP review once the test is over. Something interesting that Mrs. Cresham does is called

“May Madness”, which is where the class works on their favorite vocabulary words from the

year. I found it hilarious when I participated in it last year because I always picked the words that

sounded the funniest. The girls to my left joke with each other because they thought it would be

funny if the word “covfefe” would be on the the “May Madness” bracket. At this point, Mrs.

Cresham actually looked to me because I was laughing remembering doing the bracket and said

“Matthew knows exactly what I am talking about.”

Mrs. Cresham picked up all of the tests, which are usually divided into two different

forms with questions put in different orders in order to prevent cheating, but this time she only

had one form. The jokester on the left side of the room starts shouting “It’s the end of the world”

because he has to use form A for this test when he usually gets form B. The class laughs at his

joke as the tests continue to be passed out.All around the room people are whispering to each

other last minute questions about the Fed and inflation with very nervous looks on their faces.

Their faces look a little pale and red. Their eyes are wide open. One girl prepares by cracking her

knuckles and rolling her head around in a circle.

Mrs. Cresham told me that her seventh period is “a group of wonderful and bright

students who will certainly do well on their test. Right before she allows the students to start

their multiple choice questions she calmly looks at all of them and says “You guys have got this”

and then allows them to begin. The room gets completely silent as people stare at the first
 7

question and start to bubble in their answers on the Scantrons. Josh, who sits all the way over in

the left side of the room keeps his head down, while letting his eyes start to peer in the direction

of the students sitting to his right. He looks unsure about the questions as he continues to look

up in the hair, touch the top of his hat, and give a little peak to the people on his right. Elsewhere

in the room, there are girls constantly twirling their hair, while they answer the questions as a

way to fidget and take the test at the same time. Everyone is quiet and is mainly focused on their

own test and surprisingly with less nervous looks than I thought.

The only time where the students looked more frightened than usual is when they came

up on a question they were not sure about. The jokester came to one question, looked at it, and

hen threw his hands up in the air giving the hand gesture that he has no idea what this question is

asking for. A couple of people have their hands on their head during some parts of the test and

sigh either because they are bored, do not want to be taking the test, or are really struggling with

the test, A couple people need to stretch every couple of seconds to re energize themselves into

answering more questions. Two girls look at each other at one point, while taking the test and

laugh, which to me looked like they thought of an inside joke they have with each other.

An interesting phenomenon that I noticed in the students taking the test is when they look

up at the clock to check how much time they had left in class. This is something that almost

every student does because they want to be able to manage their time properly, so that they can

finish all aspects of the test on time. This is something that I do while taking most tests. What

made it interesting was that the clock in Mrs. Cresham’s room was broken and was stuck at the

time with the red seconds hand moving on the same number. Students would look up at the clock

realize it is not working and go back to working, This occurred all over the room as the majority
 8

of the students would look up, stare, and realize that they are staring at nothing. It became

amusing when people would look up at the clock multiple times and constantly make the same

mistake that the clock is broken.

3 girls finish their tests first, all about 20 minutes into the class, and pick up the AP

review packets and look stunned at the size of the packets that they have to work on in order to

study for the AP test. I think that the realization that the test was a month away finally hit them.

This continues to happen as every 20 seconds a different student finishes their test, turns it in,

and picks up the review kid. One guy goes back to his seat, puts his head down, and takes little

nap instead of starting the review packet. The jokester and a friend turn their tests in at the same

time laughing because they both got up at the exact same time. They then go back to their seat,

stare at the “May Madness” bracket and start laughing again at some of the words that are on the

bracket.

At this point, the majority of the class has finished their test and is working on their

review packets, but still whispering to each other about the test. Some people look at each other

and after hearing that they both got the same answer on a question start to smile and seem to

have released a lot of stress. Mrs. Cresham confronts the jokester and his friend for talking, but

they make the excuse that they were actually talking about the review packets. This is a sign that

there are still a few people scattered around the room still taking the test, Mrs. Cresham asks who

still has a test and tells them that they need to hurry up because on the actual AP exam they will

not have that much time to work on the multiple choice. This brings up the last rush of people to

turn in their tests.

 9

Once the last person turns their test in, the room erupts with people asking each other

what they got on the test. The girls in the back right seem very happy because they got similar

answers for most of the questions. Mrs. Cresham now announces that they are in AP review

season and have 28 days until the AP exam. Then she asks if the class would rather have the

countdown be by school days, which starts a 2 minute debate on how many days they should be

counting down from. They resolve on doing school days in the end, which scares everyone a

little bit because it means less numbers between them and the AP test.

Mrs. Cresham asks them what she put on Google classroom, which is the online place for

the class to look at powerpoints and messages from the teacher. None of the students had

checked that day, so they all pull out their phones to check what it is. It turns out to be a calendar

for when all of their review packets and worksheets are due. Mrs. Cresham goes over all of the

dates and tells them when the review packet is due. The jokester turns to his friend and says “I

told you so” because he knew exactly when the review packet was due, while his friend did not.

The girl sitting next to me was not paying attention at this time and turns around to the person

behind her and asks “When is the review packet due?” Her friend sighs to her and explains when

everything is due.

Mrs. Cresham ends the class that day by reminding them of what they need to bring on

the day of the AP exam, which is a ziplock baggie, with a couple of pencils, pens, their student

ID, and a snack if they want one. She makes the class show it to her for a grade the week before

the test. I laughed at this point because I remember the baggie that I made the year before in her

class. She then pointed me out saying how I know exactly what she is talking about.
 10

From what I can tell, these students will be ready for their AP test as they seem to study

efficiently and know the material well. The majority of the students have review books such as

Barron’s or Princeton Review they use to prepare for the test outside of class. They also have a

teacher that does everything to make sure they are one hundred percent ready to take this test.

Josh says ​“Mrs. Cresham has really taught us well for the test and gives us so much material that

will help me get ready for the test.” I was very impressed on how confident the students were with

their test as well as answering questions in class especially for underclassmen who have never been

in a class with a workload like this before. There must be a reason that “former students do enjoy

this class more” according to Mrs. Cresham than other AP’s because they are to be so successful at it

even if they were freshmen.