College Board hosts free AP review lessons

YouTube Live reviews are taught by AP teachers around the country

In order to prepare for the upcoming online AP exam, students can review with the College Board’s free, ongoing lessons on Youtube.

According to the College Board’s released daily schedule, the live classes for 32 AP subjects take place between 6:00 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Pacific Time and are split into 45-minute periods.

“You can watch free daily AP review sessions — live or on-demand — with some of the country’s best AP teachers,” the College Board Blog states.

Since these lessons and the AP exam are completely online, the College Board asked students without internet or a computer to fill out a technology request form. This form no longer accepts submissions as of April 24 so that the College Board can fulfill requests in time for the exam.

Similar to most AP exam prep books one can buy, these reviews are meant to help students practice previous concepts.

“I think the online AP review videos from [the] College Board could be a valuable asset for students during these unprecedented times,” Assistant Principal Natalie Smith wrote to the Talon. “I don’t think a student needs to see [the reviews] as working against a teacher’s instruction but rather alongside it.”

As for Oak Park High School AP teachers, AP English Lit. teacher Roland Herberg finds that teaching literature through remote learning is a less effective method than in-school education

“I feel pretty strongly that teaching remotely does not do justice to the works of literature that we study, nor does the medium allow for the free-spirited discussion that drives literature-based classes. Students are much more reticent to participate due to the fishbowl effect,” Herberg wrote to the Talon. “The flat screen of the computer flattens our literary spirits, so to speak.”

Herberg also supports any resource available for his students, including the free, online AP courses.

“I advocate [for] anything that will help my students gain confidence, although they are already primed to take the exam,” Herberg said. “The lessons are good but time-consuming … I would recommend a student review the class text first and then use the online sources for clarification if they don’t have time to approach me.”

While the AP exam will focus on content learned in the first three-quarters of school, the online AP courses and OPHS teachers alike will teach the remaining content left.

“I know teachers are working diligently to balance exam prep while continuing to teach interesting matters of the subject that perhaps are not covered on the AP exam this year,” Smith wrote.

Still, Herberg believes his students will definitely miss content. However, in the end, new content is endless.

“No single English teacher ever has a definitive lock on all that is to be learned in English; it is not a finite subject,” Herberg wrote. “I can only hope that my students will have learned enough to carry on in their English Lit studies — in or outside of a classroom.”