<p>I was a little curious how the class is graded at your school. At first it sounded really hard, but now I think I'd take it when I learned how tests were graded:
You get 10 multiple choice questions and 2 Free Response questions and it's scaled so your scores are equivalent to an actual AP test. 5=100%, 4=89%, 3=79%, 2=69%, and 1=59%. It seems really nice that a blank test could get a 59% and a 70ish percent could get you a perfect. Is this how all AP Physics classes are or is the teacher generous?</p>
<p>No, that’s just how your teacher chooses to grade the class. Maybe other teachers do that, but mine don’t. My AP Bio teacher graded the essays on our tests the same way the AP essays are graded, but not the rest of the test.</p>
<p>My class was not graded that way.</p>
<p>At my school, for any class, we have three 50 minute periods and one 75 minute period per week.</p>
<p>Our physics exams are administered during a 50 minute period. We’re given 25 multiple choice questions and 1 long free response (for comparative purposes, for our 2 hour final, we were given ~50 multiple choice and 3 free response questions of normal, AP length).</p>
<p>The grading is pretty weird - the multiple choice and free response questions are weighted equally. Based on the scores of all the students in the period (18 kids, full classroom), the raw scores will be scaled to letter grades (for example, if only one student received a perfect score on the multiple choice section, then one student will receive an A+ for the multiple choice section). The letter grades of the two sections are then averaged (an A- on the multiple choice section and an A+ on the free response question averages to an A, which will be recorded as a 94% in the grade book). The scaling system is relative - an easy test and a hard test will have approximately the exact same letter grade distribution. A histogram is posted on the door after each test is graded - the mean/median are probably around a B, with peaks at the A- and B-. The mode is normally a B-. Scores very frequently range from A+ to F.</p>
<p>There is another period of AP Physics C, but the grading system is identical (although the data set is different).</p>
<p>We also have formal lab reports (approximately 3 per semester, 5 pages each) and homework sets (approximately 2 per week, number of questions ranges on the topic) that are graded on a rubric of a similar nature to the AP free response question rubrics.</p>
<p>The grading system is really tough, but it’s supposed to be a good preparation for the AP test - everyone I know who took the class scored a 5 on both tests, even though most people didn’t even receive A’s in the course.</p>
<p>Hope this helped!</p>