By, Rita Li, Staff Writer

For the second consecutive year, SMUHSD and College Board made changes to the AP Exams to accommodate social distancing protocols. The decisions made by the College Board and school boards intend to protect the health of educators while helping students stay motivated to earn college credit.

CollegeBoard is offering three different testing periods that reflect the characteristics of each exam. If health conditions allow, the first administration will be held in the first half of May, which will be the traditional pen and paper exams administered in school.The second administration will take place in late May, with some test takers at home and others on campus. Additionally, Mills is going to have a third administration involving all students taking full length digital exams in early June. The school is allowing students to take the exam at school if they face at-home distractions, while most students will be taking the exam from home.

Students will get the opportunity to answer practice test questions on the 2021 exam app beginning in April. Before taking the test, students will have to install the digital exam application which will not be on the same platform as last year and will not need to install the lockdown browser. According to SMUHSD, the AP Literature and Computer Science exam will be on Tuesday, May 18th. The European History, United States History, Macroeconomics exams will be on Wednesday, May 19th. American Government, and Psychology exams will be administered on Thursday, May 20. AP Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and other foreign language exams will be done digitally on a computer on campus on Friday, June 4.  The English Language and Computer Science Principles exams will take place on Monday, June 7. The Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Physics 1, and Physics C Mech exams will be administered on Wednesday June, 9. Chemistry, Physics C E&M, Statistics, and Physics 2 will be on Thursday June, 10. Last but not least, the Biology and Environmental science tests will be on the final testing date, June 11. 

All teachers are now putting in their best effort to make sure students are fully prepared for the AP exam and free from distractions. For some teachers, the push back of the AP testing date by a few weeks has allowed them to spend more time working through material, such as the AP Biology teacher, Steven Wang. Others simply needed more time to get through the curriculum in time. Still, these differences are only a few weeks and minor, so students should have no problem making additional adjustments.