AP Exam season is well known for its inside jokes on social media and shared bonding over the 10 minute breaks during the exams. However, it is also notorious for crazy cases of students trying anything to get out of the exam or cause chaos.
College Counselor, Brandon (@tineocollegeprep on social media) receives input and proof from students all over the world of hilarious and scary incidents of students attempting to cause a scene, and people await his videos every single year.
Last year, people were pulling fire alarms to try to get out of the exam, but this year one student pulled an extreme stunt of releasing over 300 cockroaches into the gymnasium where students were taking the AP European History exam. Yet, the proctor told the students to keep working, but after 10 minutes students stormed out, unable to focus. This scene took place in Florida, and the friend of the student not taking the exam who unleashed the roaches, as well as the student who orchestrated this incident both got caught. The girl who bought the cockroaches sent a screenshot of her receipt in a groupchat, and it eventually made its way to Snapchat.
The advancement of smart technology means implementing stricter regulations and policies to prevent cheating. But, students are getting smarter and finding alternative ways to blend in. Another student in the state of Florida, brought her approved Macbook pro for the AP Literature exam. She also snuck in an MA4 13 inch Ipad Pro, which is the thinnest IPad out there, at 5.1 millimeters thick. She had two tabs open: one bluebook look alike, and ChatGPT, and she also printed out a keyboard look alike on the back of the Ipad. This allowed her to put the Ipad down whenever a proctor was near so she could hide it. She looked up the passages she was seeing on the Macbook, and then copied and pasted it into the ChatGPT, asking it to write the essay. However, when it came to transcribing the essay onto the laptop, she could not do all three things at once: having the macbook pro screen, the ipad screen, and the macbook keyboard to type. This situation meant she typed blindly, while also checking the IPad to see if she wrote everything down correctly. Repeated actions of this eventually caught the eye of the proctor, who crouched down next to her and collected the Macbook and Ipad.
Additionally, even drama with friends can interfere with disruption. This time for the AP World History, a high school junior in Texas was certain that her friend that she had drama with earlier in the year, had tampered with her FRQ while she went to the bathroom. However, according to students sitting close to the area of the student had seen no one touch her laptop. The junior accused a girl two seats in front of her of going to her laptop and deleted half of her FRQ. The proctor even offered to help her figure out how it could have been deleted, but the girl was crying even after the students claimed no one had tampered with it. Commenters online suggest that there was quite literally an undo button on the section. Nonetheless, the girl kept pointing fingers at the ex friend and yelled about something that she had apparently done to her that past year. Eyewitnesses claim that the girl she was pointing fingers at was allegedly smirking or making faces which prompted the junior even more. This distraction went on for far too long, and eventually got the exam cancelled.
While students meticulously prepare themselves for the exams, no amount of studying can prepare them for the unexpected chaos that follows AP exam seasons.