My D has been working continuously since 5pm and she only took a 15 minute break for dinner. It’s almost 10:30 and she’s still working. She did do some work for 2 other classes, but she’s pretty much been working on this AP class for 4 hrs or more. It’s just the beginning of school. Is this typical? If so, OMG!
And she hasn’t been on social media or doing other things, so no procrastinating.
I’m taking AP World History too. We have to read a chapter every night and get quizzed on it next class. It’s a lot for me and my classmates right now, but I think it will get better later on when we can learn how to read a history textbook without reading every single word and actually retain the information. Or at least I’m hoping!
My son (now a junior) took AP World History last year, and there was an insane amount of homework. He’s now taking APUSH, AP Stats, Honors English, etc, and so far, the amount of homework is nothing like it was for AP World. His AP World teacher also happened to be quite disorganized, and left a lot of material until too late in the year. My son’s advice would be to use outside study guides, like Barron’s and AP flash cards, to keep up if the teacher is not experienced. I don’t think I’ll have my younger son take AP World unless he really wants to, now that I know what he’s in for, having watched my older son. There is just so much material to cover. Good luck!
I am taking AP Euro and we have to: read ~40 pages in a college textbook, answer some mini LEQs, write a timed LEQ, and do some MCs questions every two weeks. I think that she may not be planning her time well because there is a possibility that she waited until the last minute to do her homework. If I waited until the night before to do my two weeks of homework, I would have ~7 hours of homework to do in one night.
I remember only having to read 40-50 pages/complete an online quiz weekly, be prepared for surprise reading checks, and write/edit the occasional essay, but I never felt overwhelmed because of that class. What exactly has she been assigned? Does it look like busywork? We never had projects or worksheets in my World class. I think @kimclan1 might be right. Maybe your daughter waited to do a reading and a quiz is coming up. I spent 3/4 hours taking notes over a chapter when I waited too long and had to do it all at once. I can’t imagine a history teacher giving that much homework consistently.
Each class is taught differently by different teachers so it is very difficult to know for sure. My son has to read approx 20-30 pages a night or every other night and answer 20 questions on each chapter , 10 multiple choice and 10 definitions . So yes , it can take 3 or more hours a night. Is this her first AP class? She may be adjusting to a different teaching style. It also requires a lot of reading. She may be having to reread some sections to comprehend the material . I’d also caution people not to assume that your daughter procrastinated , and that’s why it’s taking her so long. There is no consistency in the homework requirements as you can see by reading the many threads regarding AP classes including the several listed on this thread.
@carolinamom2boys @Hamlon @kimclan1 Thanks for your responses. I saw the syllabus, and all that HW was assigned yesterday and due today. There was reading, working on charts, answering numerous questions, working on a timeline AND starting an essay. Lots of busywork. In all my years as a college student and grad student, I had never seen anything like it. She said her teacher is known to be the “hardest”. This is her first AP, and I guess she has to figure it out, but I hope it lets up.
Looking forward, do you think the other AP’s are less intensive or is this class similar to most APs? Thanks again
Yes, AP world history is one of the high workload APs and for students who have never taken one of the hard AP classes before, it can be a shock. Yes, this is typical. My kids do most of the reading/outlining for the week over the weekend, and I’d be surprised if they can do it in less than 5-6 hours. My second kid is a slower reader and more of a perfectionist and she struggled a lot with the workload in the first few months of AP world, probably spending 8-10 hours on those readings. She eventually learned to get the work done more efficiently. As she’s moved into APUSH this year, she is still working to improve her efficiency.
She probably will get more efficient. If she has to produce outlines (not all teachers require this), I would say that most kids make the mistake of writing too much down. My kids would suggest setting a limit of X lines per section and sticking to it. This improves with practice. The important part is the thought process of distilling what’s important, not what’s written on the page. My second kid who reads slowly has been setting timers lately to help her pace herself through the reading and assignments more quickly. Not sure how well that will work out.
I’m surprised at the posts of kid saying they didn’t have to work much in this class. In the years I’ve been on this site, I’ve seen a pretty strong consensus that it’s a lot of work, although less so for those who don’t have to outline. (Though some of those students are required to write significant research papers, which our students are not). I’m not a huge fan of the outlining, but both my kids say that it helps them learn the material well, and our school has an extremely high pass rate, so I guess they are working harder than most, considering the roughly 50% pass rate on this exam.
I would suggest trying to get as much as possible of the week’s work done over the weekend.
@citymama9 I have to say, that is WAY more work than I had to do in AP World…in my case we had these reading guides to do while reading the chapter and some of us would be prone to copying whole sections from the textbook…but even that didn’t take as much time as it looks like your D is taking on these assignments per day. 4 hours a night is pretty extensive.
In terms of other APs it really depends on the teacher and the school. You’re almost always going to hear that there are “hard” teachers and “easy teachers”. For example, a previous poster talked about doing reading and question answering for AP Euro in her school. My AP Euro teacher never assigned hw or essays and said that we could get away with a passing grade by just listening to lectures. We had a textbook, but for course only motivated students would read it. Plus our tests (except the final) were open note. In terms of history APs for me the amount of work probably looked something like this (from least to most): AP Euro<AP Human Geo<APUSH<AP World, though this of course is going to be different for people in other schools
Also, there’s a big difference between different subject AP’s like history vs a science. History is going to be intensive in amount of reading and writing to do while a science can be intensive by problem sets (esp. if you leave them to the last day!) and lab write-ups. It all depends on the rigor of the school and rigor of the class as set by the teacher. Plus, for a STEM-oriented student history AP’s may seem harder or more work than their science AP’s and vice versa.
Good luck to your daughter! I hope her work-load lightens up…4 hours a day for one subject really seems like too much, especially if one is not interested in it.
If it’s her first AP History, she may be better served with AP Euro, because the timeline is shorter so teachers don’t feel pressured to cover 5,000 years of history in detail. It’s a massive amount of information and a lot of memorization.
AP Euro is more concentrated and while it requires pretty good writing/reading/critical thinking, it shouldn’t be as overwhelming for a first AP.
Many schools don’t offer both. Ours has only World. I will say despite the large amount of work, both my kids found it worthwhile and were glad they did it, even though neither is planning to major in history. I also feel it’s worthwhile. American kids learn so little about world history during their education outside of this class.
For many kids, this is their first experience with a class where they can’t possibly learn all the material that’s presented. Learning to deal with this and sort out what they really need to know and when they know enough is especially tough for thorough, perfectionist types.
I agree it’s worthwhile content, but 4+ hours of hw a day for that one class is too much, especially if a lot of the work is “busywork” (ie., not “harder”, just “more” stuff).
Is it really 4 hours every night? I would say 4 hours 2-3x per week would be within the normal range. I suspect that we would have seen a post before now if it were 4 hours every single night. Yes, there are plenty of reading assignments that take 6+ hours to complete. Most of the kids are pretty busy with this every sunday. Our kids do get at least the full week’s assignment the prior week so they can schedule accordingly. I think my kids probably spent more time on WHAP than on any other AP class, including APUSH, BC calc, AP chem, AP bio, which are the hardest APs at our school.
Some people consider the outlining to be busywork. I’d rather see my kids do less outlining and more paper writing but they are surprisingly supportive of it, and as I said the test results speak for themselves. Yes, there should be more to the course than prepping for the test, but at least our classes do very well with that.
OP, if this doesn’t improve soon, have your child meet with the teacher. It’s quite possible that your kid is doing more than expected. I actually had my second kid do this when she was spending an inordinate amount of time on WHAP last fall, and it did help to get some clarification of expectations and some tips on how to approach the work.
Our son often spent several hours a night on AP World History. APUSH was not too far different for workload. All the other APs have been minimal workload.
All of you have been so incredibly helpful. Thank you! I’ve been thinking: D just started school last Thurs. They then had a 3 day weekend and over the weekend she had an enormous amt of AP HW due Tues. Last night she had even more due today. I am now wondering if she left too much for last night and should have done even more over the weekend than she did. I will have to look at the syllabus. The key here may be getting stuff done way in advance of when it’s due. Anyway, I told her this class will build character and make everything to come look easy in comparison. She grunted.
Absolutely!!! My oh my! I am currently a freshman and I am loaded everynight. It consumes my time a lot. Every night I feel like I see more images of Alexander the Great and pharoahs then my own family! Lots of outlining… Ugh
Our Ap World class is nothing near the workload of that.
My sophomore has had some difficulty with planning and scheduling in the past, but he actually has done well in this class by using the syllabus to plan out his work load . Maybe that can help your daughter @citymama9 .
WHAP is definitely a class where they should be thinking and planning at least for the coming week. Good practice for college.