For senior year I’m going to be taking 3 AP Classes. They are:
AP Statistics
AP Government
AP Spanish
What is the workload going to be like for each course? Are there often group discussions in AP Government? What are the classes like? Can you rank the 3 from easiest to hardest? I would appreciate the help
AP Spanish is likely to be the hardest.
Unless you take gov and comparative governments, AP gov alone is a half AP so less intense than most.
AP stats is known as an ‘AP lite’, challenging for academically strong kids who can’t/ won’t take calculus but overall easy.
Assuming that you’re taking AP Spanish Language and Culture I would say that AP Spanish was manageable.
Considering that I’m a non-native but have been exposed to natives a lot it definitely helps to listen to the language a lot. My teacher has us doing a lot of presentations and research on the themes of the class in order to prepare us for the writing portion. Reading in the language must be one of the easiest things for you to do, the reading passages are like that of the AP Eng Lang. Always try to further you’re vocab, idioms, phrases used in the language that don’t always translate over correctly, (they make you sound like a native) and transition words like “such as, once in a while, in order to…etc” Also when you do your conversation and cultural presentation try to fill the entire time given to you. Try not to pause at all, say anything that pops in you’re mind and if you feel stuck use those transition words that you practiced so well to buy you a couple seconds!!
I read in a review book that you shouldn’t translate in your head because it just slows down your thought process. Make the language natural, and by that I mean make the language your own to wear your comfortable with it and you don’t catch yourself thinking “so that means this and that means that so the whole thing is this” or when you look at a dog you don’t want to think “dog is perro in Spanish” you would want to look at the dog and think “perro.” Make the language interchangeable with English. I tended to do that and when I changed to making it a more “natural” process I saw my language skills improve.
Always do your work in class and have confidence in yourself. Even though the class is a challenge, come to appreciate what you’re really learning. You’re learning a new way of life and are coming to see a new perspective. Find a genre of Spanish music that you enjoy (I don’t love all of them) and come to know that their culture is much like ours. Watch a movie in Spanish, it’ll be entertaining and it’ll help you with informal and formal things that you wouldn’t have thought of using in Spanish (you can change the language of some of your favorite English movies by going to audio or settings before you press play at the title menu).
I hope this helps somehow and have fun in AP Spanish!
“A different language is a different vision of life.”
I took three AP classes senior year. I really do not regret it, and I passed two of the three tests (calc and psych).
My three classes were AP Calculus, AP French Language and Culture, and AP Psychology.
I heard the ap gov test was pretty easy. If Ap spanish is like ap french, it will be difficult. It way more than just speaking and writing. It pretty similar to AP English Language and Composition. I have friends who took AP stats, and they said it was pretty similar to AP calc. I thought it pretty easy.