Hi
I don’t want to push my kid too hard, she will be junior next year and is doing regular Chem this year, the course is too easy for her, she has taken Bio in freshman. She is taking honor level Algebra 2/Trig currently. She has ADD and this year has been hard for her. She begins to take med and is getting better.
Next year, she has the option of taking AP Physics and AP Chem, along with pre-cal. Math has always been easy for her and I am not concerned, but how difficult are AP Physics and AP Chem? She is planning to take a summer course in Physics, and summer courses had been helpful in the past two years. I have been discussing with her but I just don’t know how difficult the material can be…We discussed the possibility of taking only AP Chem, but leave AP Physics to the senior, is it a good idea to leave Physics to senior year?
@annamom Since the AP Physics 1 redesign, there has been a substantial drop in student performance on the exam. About 66% of test takers failed the AP Physics 1 exam in 2015, which was the first year of the redesigned test. The curve on the AP exam is harsher, and I think I used my calculator only three or four times on the entire AP Physics 1 test this past Tuesday. In addition, many teachers have yet to catch on and adjust their teaching methods to the new style of the course, which leans more heavily towards conceptual thinking rather than mathematical calculations. My teacher simply taught us the math this year, but none of us really knew the concepts behind physics so our class average was typically 60 or below on tests.
I also took AP Chemistry this year (along with AP Physics) and found it to be much easier than physics. The course was redesigned in 2013 and likewise is geared more towards conceptual thinking, but math is still prevalent in AP Chemistry. Many teachers have adjusted their teaching methods to the new exam and there is plenty of test prep material out there that caters to the redesign. Moreover, at least in my opinion, chemistry is just easier to understand than physics.
I definitely recommend AP Chemistry to your daughter. It’s a challenging class, but she can certainly succeed with enough effort. Science/math are my weak subjects but I worked very hard and achieved an A. I believe that your daughter could handle both Chem and Physics in the same year, but she may find physics to be more frustrating, and her ADD might compound her success in a course in which many teachers do not teach too well and there are not an abundance of resources to assist in one’s understanding.
@writerzt71 thanks. the AP exam result probably explains why my heard AP Physics 1 is difficult. However, I am not too keen for her to take the exam, for the subject tests, I suspect she will likely be taking Math 2 and AP Chem…but will the class be difficult? My older kid took regular physics and I could see it will be too easy for my younger one.
I didn’t think the AP chem content was hard, necessarily, but there’s so much of it, which makes the class a lot of work.
I know AP physics 1 has pretty low scores across the board, but it’s not hard if your daughter is good at math. I actually thought the physics 1 class was easier, but I didn’t take the AP since I’m doing physics C next year.