MSD U.S. Government and Politics students are set to take a new end-of-course exam in December; surprising and upsetting students.

The Florida Department of Education now requires all students taking a U.S. government class to take a new end-of-course exam. The EOC will be required for graduation of all Florida high school seniors; considering this has just recently been announced well into the school year, many seniors are worried and upset with the lack of notice.

U.S. government students whether in an Advanced Placement (AP), honors, or regular class are surprised by this recent requirement of an EOC in December of 2021. Many students are uneasy about the EOC since they had no knowledge of the test when signing up for classes during their junior year. Since many students were unaware of the EOC, they were also unaware of the graduation requirements tied to the completion of the exam.

“I was surprised about the creation of the exam, as I didn’t think as students we’d need to take state required assessments in high school beyond our first few years,” senior Logan Walsh said. “It especially didn’t help that it wasn’t officially announced until part way through the school year instead of towards the beginning.”

This exam, being thrown rather recently onto senior students taking this course, poses many concerns from students. Some students are concerned with the amount of curriculum that has to be covered by the exam date in December. Many students and teachers feel they should’ve been given earlier notice in hopes of creating a more thorough study plan while others feel it is fair to have an exam at the end of semester one.

“​​It is fair,” AP U.S. government and politics teacher Jeffery Foster said. “I believe that all United States citizens should have a rudimentary knowledge of how our government works and why it matters.”

Many high school students often feel senior year is one of the most difficult years of all four. This is due to the stress of applying for colleges, completing credits and other obligations like extracurriculars. In addition to all of the stress already packed onto seniors, U.S. government students now must worry about the stress of studying for the EOC. While some students are stressed about the EOC, some others are not worried about the upcoming test.

“This exam won’t add stress for me since I’m in AP gov, and the EOC is not as difficult as the AP exam,”senior Tyler Opdyke said. “But it definitely adds stress to people who did not expect to have to take the exam.”

Students are going to have to learn about half of the curriculum of the course that will be covered on the EOC. For this reason, the EOCs for most classes are scheduled to be during either the end of April or towards mid May.

With the test being scheduled for December, students will be bogged down with preparing for the SAT/ACT, taking midterms and managing their course load, in addition to the added stress of the EOC.