SOL testing is now complete, but that does not mean that the AHS underclassmen can breathe easy now. It may feel like summer, with hot weather and pools now open, but students can’t close those textbooks just yet. Final exams are being completed this week and students are feeling the stress.

“I am happy that the SOLs are over. I passed every single SOL I took, but I had to earn that. Every night, my dad would make me sit at the table from three to nine and read my notes and textbooks,” said freshman Nikita Coelho.  “I’ve been doing this since the beginning of May, and I’ll have to keep doing this until the finals are over. I wish I could just spend my entire day at the pool, but instead I have to be stressed out about these finals.”

Others will wait until the night before to begin preparing for their finals. “I’m not studying for my finals right now. Right before the finals, I’ll have a major cram session, but the only finals I feel stressed about are IB Spanish and IB English,” said junior Quan Ngo.

Many students feel that final exams are much more stressful than SOLs. This stems from the fact that generally final exams count for ⅕ of the student’s final grade for the class. “I never felt stress for the SOLs, but I do feel a little stressed about the finals. I’ll have to spend a lot of time studying for my Spanish final, because that is the one final that I am concerned about,” said sophomore Samuel Dores.

Co-Editor in Chief Annie Curran contributed to this report.