The end of second semester will no longer be met with semester exams for two semester AP, reading or IB courses. This change comes about after a district-wide initiative by the Hillsborough County school board, in hopes to reduce testing pressures on students.

This rule follows a pattern of exam exception for classes that have an EOC
such as Biology and United States History.

This reduction in finals has been met with positive reactions by most students.

“I like the new procedure because last year when I had AP Exams I didn’t
want to take a final so I’m glad that this year they changed that,” senior Matt Page said.

Echoing Page, “It’s like an award at the end of the year,” junior Riley Moore said.

However, some students and teachers do not see a great amount of benefit
with the new second semester schedule.

“It’s nice because its one less exam to take, but it really isn’t that big of difference a because if you study for AP exams you don’t have to study for the county exam,” sophomore Charlotte Holman said.

Similarly, AP European History Teacher, Greg Maurin fears second semester
exams were the only thing keeping students in class.

“I’m sure the students are going to find that [no exams] good, I’m not sure what that’s going to do to their motivation to finish strong at the end of the year,” Maurin said. “I don’t know that they really worried about the semester exam anyway except for attendance, so [I] wonder if that will affect attendance.”

Some courses that will no longer host a second semester exam include AP Human Geography, AP AB/BC Calculus, AP Literature, AP Biology and any other
two semester AP course.

Some AP courses that will still include a final exam include AP Comparative
Government and AP Microeconomics, as they only include one semester of
curriculum.

Also brought about with this new change in exams is a change in scale for
determining second semester grades. The grades for the affected classes will
now be based on third and fourth quarter grades.