Plus a tangent on why stupid people ruin everything. But first, watch me skillfully skirt around the non-disclosure.
The Test
The Multiple Choice
Was fine, I guess. It was really funny that the one Look at Me passage got CB in trouble with the author. I honestly don’t know what r/APStudents are on, the passage was not that hard. The loquat passage was hilarious though, the author of the newspaper article probably got clowned on so hard. As a plus, now I know what a loquat is.
The “writing” section of the MC was also lowkey easy. One mistake that (I think) a lot of people (could) have made was not reading the passage through before answering the questions. It would (probably) have caused them to miss a question on the first passage where the author went on an unnecessary tangent about the postal system in their opening.
Synthesis
That was the best synthesis essay I have ever written. It was about space debris, which is a topic I know things about, for some reason. The fact that the topic was STEM-related was a major win for all the future STEM majors (including me) taking the class this year—it made the essay a thousand times easier to write. I managed to use every single source on the essay (there were six), a feat unheard of.
The Incident
As I was writing the last sentence on the synthesis, the fire alarm went off, and we all had to leave our stations and go outside. Everyone was furious. A few minutes later, the fire department came and had to sweep the building. At the same time, videos were circulating regarding what had happened.
Apparently, some stupid fucking freshman had stuck a pencil (or something) through his Chromebook, causing the battery to explode. His reaction to the smoke, was, and I quote, “that wasn’t supposed to happen.” buddy. You caused a fucking SHORT to the battery. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN??? The kid was arrested that day (rejoice angry AP students) and his trial started the day afterwards (allegedly, I did not personally confirm this). I kid you not, every single tester wanted to jump him that day.
By the time we were allowed to go back inside, we had lost 45 minutes of testing time, with around 40 left. The proctors decided to cancel all of our tests. Keep in mind, there were over 180 of us, all of us had our scores cancelled.
I Hate Stupid People
For the last couple of years, our privileges have slowly been stripped away by the ones among us who put zero thought into the consequences of their actions. It started slow—one of the first removals was the ability to ride the late (middle school) bus.
Apparently, too many people were “abusing” it, and now you need a pass from a teacher to even be at school after school. I believe this took effect my sophomore year, and my routine of finding somewhere quiet to study or do homework for another hour was ruined. I was now either forced to go to the library, go to the cafeteria, or go home, and there are problems with all three. The library, although somewhat quiet, is not quiet enough for me to work in. Fairly often, some stupid people make noise and have to be given a “warning” to quiet down (hint: they are never kicked out). The cafeteria is incredibly loud, as expected. At home, my parents come into my room every five minutes to “make sure I’m actually doing work.” Instead, they end up breaking my focus every time, which often takes me minutes to regain (I’m a strange individual, don’t judge me), by which time they interrupt me again.
That was the first offense of many. Soon, we were not allowed to go to the bathroom for the first or last five minutes of class. We were not allowed to leave the cafeteria during lunch. We were given huge metal plates to carry around with us whenever we left class. Because of the worst of us, more and more things were taken from the best of us.
By the way, did you know that group punishment is a war crime?
“No … person may be punished for an offence [they have] not personally committed. Collective penalties … are prohibited”
— The Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33
Shifting the Blame
Obviously, the kid is to blame for the incident on Wednesday. Right?
I blame the school. This occurred as a direct result of their over-tolerance towards kids who break rules. I guarantee you, if the school properly punished students who misbehaved, this would never have happened. Shaker has a long history of excusing absences (cut classes), failing grades, etc. from students in order to get a little more funding from the government (which is counterintuitively based on the number of passing students rather than failing ones). As an example, there is literally no punishment for a student skipping a class—no note home, nothing on your record, no detention: just a stern talking-to from your teacher.
Something needs to change here.