Although it is uncommon in a lot of Fairfax County Public Schools, many AP classes at Oakton High School administer their final exams before AP exams begin. Holding final exams before AP exams forces students to prepare and be ready for the AP exam in addition to the final. As junior year is famously known for usually being the hardest year of high school, juniors at Oakton talk about their experience and how they’re handling the numerous finals they have.

This week, juniors are taking many finals, including AP Chemistry, AP Physics 1 and AP Physics C, AP Psychology, and AP U.S. History. In addition, students were offered the opportunity to take a AP BC Calculus mock exam to prepare them for the AP exam. Clare Sparling (11) says that although this week does pose a lot of challenges for her, she likes weeks with testing because she has less homework and can sleep early. When classes are testing, especially with finals, it is common for them to not have homework, at least that is due. The homework they have is to just study for their test.

While this is true, Sitara Sastry (11), says that she doesn’t like weeks with testing because there is a lot of stress and pressure placed on students. The decrease in homework gives them more time to study, which may make students feel more overwhelmed or pressured to continue to study.

To combat students’ increasing stress levels, the administration and counselors at Oakton have arranged it to be “stress less, laugh more” week. They held numerous interactive activities for students to relieve their stress and lighten the school environment. The activities included allowing students to interact with therapy dogs during their lunch block and eating candy (given by the administration) during lunch. The administration and counselors did a great job in being able to add a bit more fun into students’ stressful week.