It is Finished

Mersades Zimmer

Eyes dazed, hands shaking, Daniel Kim (11, pictured below) attempts to sharpen a saw he is using to construct a ramp for a physics lab. Even though the AP Physics 1 exam is finished, students are busy working away at final projects and labs. Confusedly, Daniel looks up from his work and asks, “Mrs. Rogers, am I doing this right?”

However many projects plague AP Physics students, they are still elated to have completed their exam—to have traversed the devilish desert of velocity and gravitational constants and circuits. “It was fun,” Daniel Munson (12) comments, “but I’m glad it’s over. It was a challenging class.” Students spent many a nights painstakingly stitching together labs and projects and proposals. They practiced problem after problem, free response after free response, all pushed on by their energetic, if not slightly kooky teacher and mentor, Mrs. Rogers. 

Students put this feverish preparation to the test on May 2, 2017, when all AP Physics 1 took the AP exam. After a four hour (including wait-time) brain-bashing session, students, free of their scientific burdens, rushed from the testing room and into freedom. Bewilderment and desperation painted some faces, sleepiness decorated others. “Truthfully, I fell asleep,” David Unruh (12) confesses. “After I finished multiple choice, I put my head on the table and snored.”

“I’m relieved for my students [that the exam is finished],” Mrs. Rogers commented, to which Unruh replied, “Wow, she has a heart.” Playful banter commonly bubbled into class discussions, breathing life into challenging topics. Even after the reaching the summit of the AP exam, students are required to attend their previous AP class. Thus, Mrs. Rogers fills the time with science-y, if not torturous assignments. For example, students were asked to design an experiment comparing gravitational potential energy and spring potential energy. Thus, many pupils are in the process of ramp construction—a process that has left Kim severely confused.