Last Minute Thoughts: AP European History

Tomorrow, about a dozen sophomores here at DaVinci Academy will be presented with the hardest exam of their lives. Just learning the curriculum requires rigorous assignments and endless pain, along with staying up all night (pondering the reasons you signed up for this possibly unconstitutional method of torture and its successor) and wondering if your next breath will be your last. This is worse than any law-related or college admission exam ever in existence: this is the AP European History final. Students will be trapped in a top-secret undisclosed location without any escape, communication with the outside world or food and drink, not even the simplest and most salutary chemical compound … water.

Tonight even the smartest students in the field of social studies (except the duo at the HOBY Conference and the individual with strep throat: may God forgive them) will be at their computer desks, studying stacks of review books and packets, in addition to attempting to re-read their entire gruesome and repugnant, thousand page textbook, with the tiniest of fonts and hardest of language. The course and exam cover every minutiae pertaining to the movements that occurred and the relationships between countries, from 1500 to 2000 (that’s five centuries). Of course, instructor Paul Goggi has done an extraordinary job preparing us by assigning essays and reading every bloody day we manage to stay alive, but you try memorizing all that, before answering eighty questions and completing three essays on them.

To make matters worse … after the practice examination, student Billary E. Whiteford exclaimed that he didn’t remember the answer to some questions. Former test-taker and friend Elizabeth “Liz” Wharton was immensely shocked and gasped upon hearing the terrible news, knowing that the world will soon be coming to an end. Just to be clear though, I’m talking about the student who studies history for amusement and knows the antiquity of everything. In addition, he once said:

If history was to be a person, I would marry it.

Nonetheless, sometimes I do [in all seriousness] ponder my intentions for signing up. Majority of colleges don’t even assign credit for this exam, and if they do … you better be a history major, or kiss those $91 good bye and embrace that stress! So was it because I wanted to seem smart or look good to colleges? No, I just did it for no particular reason and I’m darn sure the rest of the class resembles my situation. In addition according to legend, we study history because if we do not, we are bound to repeat it: wars between Christian sects and pondering whether a republic is the proper form of government.

No matter my problems with this course exam and its grueling-ness, I will try my best to survive the exam tomorrow afternoon, even if I come out more brain-damaged and stressed. Last but not least, if you are a current ninth grader and still want to take the course … may God bless your innocent soul.

In addition, Billary and I have a money-less wager for who receives the highest score. He is so confident he’ll get an impossible 6, but I know we will simply tie at 5. However, if he does win, I will refer to the famous quote by Mr. Goggi:

If you fail or get a score you don’t like, you can always blame it on me.