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Two Weeks and Twenty Dead Brains Later
Story by: Makayla Ogdahl
AP students spend eight months preparing for a single day, a single test. Or, if you’re like a lot of AP students at our school in particular, two to three days and two to three tests. A lot of people would be intimidated by these numbers, but its not always as bad as it seems. Joshua Bamm took three AP tests this year, and says simply that he just prefers not to worry. “I am as prepared as I will ever be. Let’s just wing it and I will get what I deserve,” he tells himself.
This year was an interesting year for Bamm in particular during AP testing. Most people dread taking a test once; however, Bamm has now taken the AP Calculus AB test twice. He decided to audit the class at the end of last year because he believed that he had not passed the AP exam (you don’t find out your scores till July, after all, so two whole months go by where you have no idea what to expect) - but when the scores came in, he’d passed. He decided to carry on auditing the class though, and says, “I feel that auditing the class was a valuable experience since it served as a way to further my understanding of the foundations of Calculus before heading out to college.”
Immersing himself in the criteria again not only helped to solidify his understanding of the material, but allowed him the opportunity to take the AP test again. And, go figure, he noticed that it was “considerably easier than last year’s.” He even recognized one of the free response questions as one that he and another student had figured out last year, and said that the other free response questions were not nearly as difficult as before. Sometimes your performance on a test just depends on your luck of getting easy questions.
Not all students share his easy-going attitude towards these tests, though. Dozens of students thought that tackling AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, AP English, and AP Government all in one year would be a piece of cake. Now I’m not sure how you like your cake, but I like mine with a lot less textbooks and tears and a lot more buttercream frosting. By the second semester, most of these go-getter students had realized that this amount of rigor was impossible to manage on top of sports and family obligations, and dropped a class or two. And they should feel good about it, because taking four AP classes may make you look good, but high stress levels and pulling your hair out definitely will not.
Many students may be unaware, but up until now you have been allowed to take an AP test even if you not enrolled in that AP class - you just have to have a good recommendation and the willingness to try. Cassidy Zimarik accomplished that feat this year, and therefore found herself in room 110 early Wednesday morning with a three hour test looming in front of her. The AP Literature and Composition test (AP English 12 for most people) consists of one hour of multiple choice questions and a two-hour block in which students are required to write three essays. Zimarik was not only slightly less familiar with the material, but also had the stress of a time crunch on her head. She and the two other swimmers had to leave at 10 a.m. for DAL Finals, but the test couldn’t start until well past 7:15. (We survived though; swimmers survive.)
As that three-hour block came to a close, one student (who will remain anonymous) found that they were out of time for their third essay. In a final act of desperation, they wrote “I’m sorry ):” mid-sentence just as the tests were called to be handed in. With any luck, the AP graders will have hearts and pity. These tests are hard, and are designed to be that way. But the two weeks of exhausted and unteachable students is worth the difficulty of getting them there.
Every 15 Minutes
Story By: Alexis Hidalgo
From March 30th to May 1st, Twentynine Palms High School experienced the realistic vision of what happens when you drink and drive. Every 15 minutes the students heard the phrase “Every 15 minutes someone dies from and alcohol related car crash. Someone you know just died.” Soon after, the grim reaper would enter the classroom of certain individuals and the chosen student would “die”. The rules were that they had to act like they didn’t exist all day. To their peers, they were ghosts.
When fourth period came around, on the first day of the program, the students had to watch a reenactment of a drunk driving car accident. One car consisted of the drunk driver, Kaleb Wiliford, and three of his drunk friends, Kyle Hope, Shane Estrada, and Beayahn Carrllo, driving home from a party after prom. Another consisted of ASB students Hanna Beard, Koko Cabrera, Jared Begnaud, and Ryan Blankenship heading home from prom clean-up. The third car consisted of two chaperones, Mr. Fontana and Ms. Mintz. In the crash, Hope and Ms. Mintz died on impact, Carrllo was paralyzed from the waist down, Cabrera was airlifted for her life to be saved, Begnaud was paralyzed from the neck down, and Mr. Fontana broke his arm. This event made the message clearer to students because they got the chance to witness what could really happen if they drank and drove.
The following day, the program continued. This day was to memorialize all of the people who died as a part of E15, as well as the people who died and were injured in the accident. Many people were stuck wondering, “Did Koko live or die when she got to the hospital?” That question was answered by a video taken at the hospital while Cabrera was getting treated by doctors, who in the end couldn’t save her life; she died due to internal injuries. So the next question: “Well, what happened to Kaleb?” That was also answered by video: Wiliford being processed at the jail. He was then sentenced and put into prison for driving under the influence, three counts of vehicular manslaughter, and three counts of injury. It was a very dramatic experience for most of the students.
What followed next was a reading of the letters the “ghosts” wrote to a parent, a teacher, and a friend/student. One of each were read out loud to the audience; it was an emotional time. But what was probably one of the best things for the students to hear was the guest speaker, Wendy Reynolds, who had an experience with a drunk driver when she was a little girl. She told the students how both of her parents and her sister died due to this drunk driver. She also explained how she also almost died, because the police didn’t know she was in the car under metal from the crash. It was an enlightening conversation and the students learned a lot from her. She doesn’t believe she was brave, as people called her; she was a survivor.
The message that was meant to get through to the juniors and seniors was: don’t drink and drive, ever. Though at the end of the day everyone was still alive, we knew that the possibility of that hypothetical situation could become reality.
May 29th, 2015
April 17th, 2015
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