<p>I'm preparing for the AP Chinese exam and I get most of the questions in my review book right, but I was wondering why the AP chinese exam is said to be so "easy."</p>
<p>Is it because the difficulty of the questions is so easy? Does the AP Chinese exam have a bad curve or a good one? My friend told me that either the questions on an AP exam is easy or there is a big curve.</p>
<p>So I'm wondering which it is. I'm suspecting the real test will be harder than the review questions. So, does the AP Chinese exam have easy questions, a great curve, or somehow both?</p>
<p>If you are a native Chinese(Mandarin) speaker who can type with pinyin, then it will be really easy for you. I don’t think they will have really big curve since students who take AP Chinese exam are mostly native Chinese speaker :)</p>
<p>Fireroy, have you looked at the SAT II Chinese w/Listening test? There may be more reference materials for that test than there are for the AP Chinese test. Yes, it would be easier, but quite frankly, you’re practicing a language, so it should not matter too much.</p>
<p>The reason that the AP Chinese test has many 5s, as has been mentioned before in previous topics, is that it is mostly taken by native speakers. Judging by the 81% 5s, there is probably no curve beyond the standard 80% right ratio that they give.</p>
<p>If you need more practice, you might as well just browse Chinese websites and watch Chinese TV or something. </p>
<p>I would not be worried too much about it if you are a native speaker.</p>
<p>But the thing is that I’m not a native speaker. When I practiced from Barrons prep book for the listening part I didn’t get all of the questions right. My average was about 8 out of 10 questions.</p>
<p>So I’m wondering is the test harder than the prep book questions. If the curve is 80% then I might be I’m trouble</p>
<p>Yeah if you’re not a native speaker you might find it hard. I know it’s that way for the Chinese SAT II’s at least, because lots of native speakers take it since they know they’ll do well. How do you feel about your AP Chinese class, ie do you find it difficult?</p>
<p>“Standard” group do not regularly speak/hear the language.</p>
<p>Huge curve. Compare to the German or Spanish or French exam where the “Standard” percentage of 5’s is under 10% and the total is under 25%. Granted, AP Chinese total is weighted by the huge percentage of native speakers, but the standard percentages are the real telling statistic.</p>
<p>The score percentage is far more valuable than the actual curve. The curve is useless if you don’t know the difficulty of the test (which you clearly don’t). The percentages suggest that the test is cake or the curve is massive.</p>
<p>even if you do score only a 3 or 4, the fact that you are a foreigner who passed the Chinese test tells a lot. Chinese is THE hardest language in the world</p>
<p>a native speaker would tell u its easy, but chinese is really the hardest language to learn!! i think u should try the SAT practice questions (the sample questions they have on collegeboard) those really helped n prepared me on the types of questions to expect. I only got 8/10 when i tried the sample questions, but scored a 800 on the subject test with listening, so getting a few wrong doesn’t mean anything. (Thou i have to admit some of the questions are tricky.) I think u should totally give it a shot it will look good on ur app if u score a 4 or high since ur not a native speaker</p>
<p>I’m still just wondering the REASON why many people get 5s. Is it because the questions are easy in their opinion or because theres a big curve? I’m talking about non-native speakers</p>
<p>Have you tried doing a google search for like “AP Chinese difficulty”? Including the phrase “non-native” might help.</p>
<p>From my understanding, the reading portion is cake, for everyone. The listening and typing or whatever can be very difficult, but even relatively poor performances tend to not hurt your score too bad.</p>
<p>This won’t give you an indication of the curve but at least you’ll be able to interpret the difficulty. From there maybe you can compare to what other students though about the exam and the score they ended up getting.</p>
<p>Why are you so concerned about the curve? Knowing the curve is not going to affect your performance on the exam. Just do your best.</p>
<p>Just wanted to point out that there may be some misconceptions implied by the term “native Chinese speakers” here. Many (or most?) of AP Chinese takers are Chinese descendants, and they score very well on the test. But that in many cases are not because of their “native” language ability. Those are second or third generation Americans. They are born in America, receive their education entirely in American schools. Some speak varying degree of Chinese at home, some don’t. What is different about them is that they have culture/ethnic incentives to learn the Chinese language (encouraged, or simply “sent” by their families), and many of them receive varying degree of help from family members in the learning process (speak the language at home, help with practice, etc.). However, in most, if not all, cases, they are much more comfortable and competent in English, and all their regular education is received in English. English is by far the dominant language in their life and should be more regarded as their first language. So, categorizing them as “native speakers” is not really accurate, because most of them do have to learn and have to struggle to get a 5 in AP. For the truly native speakers (those who moved to the U.S. after already started schooling in China), few of them would feel the need to enroll in Chinese language class in the U.S. </p>
<p>Incidentally, Chinese is quite tough a language to anyone who does not have some natural connection to it. For all the “regular” (non-ethnic Chinese) students in a AP Chinese class, you are very brave.</p>
<p>Btw does anyone know how to grade a Barrons practice test for AP Chinese? Also, for those people who took it last year, are the questions on Barrons harder, easier or about the same when compared to the real test?</p>