*AP Computer Science Principles Thread 2018-2019*

Hey guys! I didn’t see a thread for this anywhere on CC and thought it may be helpful for us students in AP CSP this year (although it may be a bit late) to talk about the upcoming AP Exam and the performance tasks (without cheating or anything haha). For those of you that have taken the exam in the past, how was the exam and what resources did you use to prepare? I’ve heard it’s fairly easy but I just wanted a bit more information on it.

My students told me the MC was easy BUT just a long exam in terms of reading. They also said the programming/algorithm tracing took a while. Majority of my students knew they got at least half the questions right out of 74.

@bjgiants6 Yeah, I thought it was pretty easy too. I didn’t really learn much in my class because we weren’t taught too much but one read-through of the 5 steps to a 5 prep book was good enough to do great on the MC.

It will be interesting to see how the scores align with how folks think the test went. My D said she was done in an hour and sketched the rest of the time.

She better have done well…

Ok, she did - got a 5.

13.6% 5’s, so it wasn’t really easy - right at the median for all APs. Though it did have one of the lower percentages of 1s and 2s.

@RichInPitt I just checked my score today too. I got a 4, which is a good score, but I really REALLY thought I got a 5. I know this may sound a bit silly, but would it be worth getting the multiple choice section rescored for $30 if I’m almost certain I did well enough to get a 5? I’m OK with the 4, but I really felt like I got a 5.

99.999999% sure your score would remain unchanged. I’ve heard of a couple of success stories on rescoring, but none involved the student initially getting a 4.

@skieurope Yeah then I guess I probably won’t get it rescored. I just wanted to do it for closure but it probably won’t end up helping.

We’ve been sweating it out since that 13.6% statistic came out in late June, but fortunately DD got a 5, as well as an A in the class. Her class was extremely well-taught (the teacher was fantastic, they covered a lot of material, plus a free student tutor was available once a week), which appears to be a rarity, based on what a lot of kids on these boards say. The worst score reported in the class grapevine so far was a 4, but a couple of C-students got 5’s. Excellent results for this hard-working class, and I hope the teacher gets some brownie points too.

My high school offered CSP for the first time this year to ~70 students, only a handful of whom weren’t juniors or seniors. According to my teacher, out of the scores so far (some have been delayed), the mean score was 2.83. A bit below the national average, but I would say it turned out well for an urban public school’s first run.

I got a 5 along with 2 other seniors, which seems a little low especially knowing some of the bright minds in my class. I suppose it could be a semi-tedious/challenging class for those without prior programming experience. The general consensus is that the MC was extremely easy while the performance tasks were time-consuming and confusing; likely where most of the points were lost. A lot of the failing scores came from students who didn’t even submit some or all of the tasks.

I thought it was a great class and my teacher wasn’t horrible, but it’s far too easy to treat the class like a joke since it’s deemed a “dumrd down CSA” (which it is in some ways, but it’s apples and oranges in others). Even I did, but I had the experience to somewhat justify it while others didnt and got 3s or 4s or below in a class that isn’t too difficult to get a 5 in if the effort is put in.