<p>The free-response section has gotten progressively easier throughout the years, says my AP chem teacher. This year's section, I must say I was surprised by the relative ease (I thought it was going to be much more though-provoking or w/e), especially by the reactions. I guess they're doing this to make AP chem top scores more accessible to average folks by increasing the number of 5's. I think this parallels something occurring in the general educational system of the US...do more for the average than for the more motivated, high-achieving students. Sure, an easier AP chem test will get someone a 5 and add a sort of completeness to any top student's application, but eventually this 5 won't mean too much! It won't be as revealing. I'm curious about what CC people think about dumbing down any test to better suit the mass?</p>
<p>what are you talking about? i thought this year's was just as hard as the ones from past years (except reactions). i compared the 2007 exam to the past ones online and they don't look much harder...i have a lot of friends who thought it was hard and got 3s or 4s. i got a 5 but i studied a lot.</p>
<p>Well i think maybe for the year they may have made it a little easier because of the new format and they wanted to try it out. But i thought they made curves based on how college students did on the test when they were given the test. If the test was easier than you need a higher score to get a 5. I got a 5 but still there were parts i thought as diffcult. #3 on fr was tough and the mc was fairly diffucult.</p>
<p>I will admit that the FRQs have gotten easier for Chem.. but on the other hand.. I'm pretty sure now you have to get more right to get a 5. </p>
<p>I saw the scoring sheet for the 1989 AP & the 1997 AP.</p>
<p>The 1989 AP was much tougher.. but you could get about 55% right and still get a 5.. for the 1997.. you needed at least 70%.</p>
<p>rofl might be bad for you but I'm taking APChem next year so haha =]</p>
<p>I agree one hundred percent. </p>
<p>And llpitch what the hell are you talking about? It was easy for us, too, he's saying it's bad that they're dumbing it down. If anything they'll see how many people did better than they expected and make it a little harder again next year. Especially the reactions, they just gave those away, so I expect they'll still be working with those. So haha.</p>
<p>well there was a new format this year. although the questions might have been harder in past years, the students taking the exams could choose between problems. this year, we had to do all of the problems given. i'm assuming that they made it a little bit easier this year for that reason. i really don't think that it was THAT much easier compared to past years (except for the reactions).</p>
<p>ok what i dont think is understood too well is that the exam is graded on a curve
which means, yes it could be spectacularly easy, so everybody will get a high score, but to reach a 5 (top 17%) you will need practically perfect exam
wheeas if it was really hard, it wouldnt be looking for perfection on tests</p>
<p>I dont know about you guys, but at my school, AP chem students have gotten progressively stupider through the years. My teacher bases grades on a curve where the average of the top three students set the curve. Last year, the curve was consistently around 85-90 while this year it hangs around 75-80</p>
<p>I don't think they curve the scores by considering the top so and so percent of scorers...the convert from raw score to AP score is based (partially, I think) on previous AP chem students and their grades in freshmen chemistry classes</p>
<p>Ok, the equation writing this year was really easy, but only because it's in a new format which doesn't allow you to choose like 5 out of 8.</p>
<p>Other stuff wasn't that different. There's always equilibrium. There's gas and kinetic theories. I mean, there's not much to dumb down on AP Chem except for reaction writing.</p>
<p>I agree with jenkster. Aside from the equations, a look at past FRQs will show that the same type of questions appear over and over.</p>
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I don't think they curve the scores by considering the top so and so percent of scorers...the convert from raw score to AP score is based (partially, I think) on previous AP chem students and their grades in freshmen chemistry classes
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i am almost positive that it is just "17% get 5's, x% get 4's..."</p>
<p>No, MCow, the percentage changes every year. It doesn't make sense if that's how they did it. It wouldn't be fair either; I know its unlikely, but say a certain, small amount of people got perfect raw scores, and the rest got very low raw scores. If there weren't enough people with perfect scores, the rest of the 17% getting 5's would have to come from the lower scores, so not only is there a big difference between people getting 5's, but there is a small difference between people getting 5's and 4's.</p>
<p>Yah, I think they made it a litte too easy this year.
Ironically, I found MC very easier and had tad bit difficulty with FR. The color of the indicator, to be more specific. And on one of parts of number 2.</p>
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<p>The College Board validates AP tests by giving them to college students, so if a test is getting easier over time, that suggests that a dumber group of college students over time is included in the validation studies. That might be.</p>
<p>there was no equilibrium this year...was there?</p>
<p>The first problem was on Acid/Base.</p>
<p>that seems counterintuitive. if anything, the ap tests would gradually be made more testing due to current circumstances. the IB program is becoming to be known as being more valid than the ap program because of the aps' ease. only within the past one or two years have some schools begun to invalidate ap scores (can't remember which ones exactly, but i remember the ivy leagues as being the primary group). i remember a line even being said by one of the colleges that many of the students who had entered the college with "5's" on ap exams were unprepared for the coursework that was presented to them. it just seems that collegeboard would buffer up their exams -- not the other way around.</p>
<p>also, if collegeboard were to "dumb" the aps slightly, it would most likely be done with every one of the aps. certainly this was not the case as the general consensus was that teh calculus ab exam of this year was more challenging than those of past years. </p>
<p>rather than positing that the aps are becoming much easier to suit the esteems of the mediocre students, why don't we just accept what has been given to us. if ap exams are truely being tweaked to be more straightforward, i'd stay quiet and not give anyone the impression that the scores i've gotten weren't at all deserved ;P</p>
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the IB program is becoming to be known as being more valid than the ap program because of the aps' ease.
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<p>I'd have to see a lot more evidence on that point before I would take that statement at face value.</p>