AP Spanish? Any input? Native Speaker.

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hi guys.

I am currently a freshman in high school (class of 2019). I just had a question about the AP Spanish exam.

I was born in Mexico, and am a native speaker of Spanish. I am not taking Spanish in school (taking Chinese), but I was thinking that I should take the AP Spanish exam.

My issue is that even though my speaking and listening abilities are near perfect, I have never actually taken a Spanish course. The concern is that I would have missed a lot of technical grammar aspects of the exam that my classmates may have learned in a classroom setting.

Can anyone attest to what the exam kind of looks like, and what kind of insight you might give me? I would obviously be aiming for a five.

Should I take the AP Spanish exam sophomore?

Thanks.

2

I have heard that native speakers are expected to score a 5, but that it’s not really valued by the adcoms. I might try to find out a little more on that before I went to the trouble. (And if you decide to do it, you might want to take the class, which you could then explain – you needed to learn grammar/literature, before you took the exam.)

3

It is my understanding that colleges discourage native speakers of any language from submitting an AP in that language to them. Doesn’t mean you can’t, but it is not given the weight of your having stretched and taken a language foreign to you.

The one exception I can think of regarding this subject is where a school district seeks to raise the student profile of students new to the country, or still in ESL classes because they are from foreign-language speaking families and still do speak that language at home all of the time.

In an effort to reduce the stigma to those students, who may not have had the opportunity to take other classes due to their learning English (itself a foreign language), such schools work to make sure at least one AP where proficiency can be shown is on the students’ high school record.

4

With regards to the question about what the exam was like, you can easily google practice AP spanish exams and judge your abilities off of those questions.

5

My friend was in your exact situation and took the exam, scoring a 5. I believe if you did decide to take it you would be fine! I took the exam (though I’m not 100% fluent like you are, I scored a 5 as well) and there were not any questions strictly regarding grammar rules or anything related. The multiple choice section requires reading passages and answering questions about the passage, and the speaking section includes a conversation and a speech that you would probably excel at.

I would suggest looking over the structure of the test and maybe doing a practice test or two just to become familiar with it. Otherwise you are perfectly prepared to, at the VERY least, pass.

6

That is incorrect.

Also incorrect. They discourage native/heritage speakers from submitting Subject Test scores (if the college requests/requires them.

AP exams for anybody will carry little to no wait in the admissions process. Colleges mainly use them for credit and/or placement. In cases where the exam is tied to a course (obviously not the case here), a strong score can also help validate academic rigor.
Now that we have the fallacies out of the way, back to the OP’s question.

The AP exam does not test grammar pre se, although in the writing and speaking parts, one is expected to compose grammatically correct sentences.

Pick up any review book, or go the the CB website to get examples of test questions.

Take a practice test. If you do well, sure; go for it.

7

Absolutely , little to no chance of it being considered in the application process, we have been told.

Yet, taking the test with that in mind, and where colleges and universities have arguably been understood to consider APs, the OP should know that adding the native-language test will have him or her gain very little.

8

I took AP Spanish (class as well as exam) this year. I’m a gringo, so I can’t help as far as what it’s like being a native speaker, but I can let you know how the exam was.

So for 50% of the exam, grammar is completely irrelevant. 50% of it is reading and/or listening to a passage, and then answering questions about it. On the other 50%, fair grammar will be needed. The other 50% is half speaking, and half writing. In the writing, grammar is considered, but you will only need the present tense, proper use of haber, and the occasional imperfecto and preterito. In the speaking you will usually only need the present, and grammar mistakes are usually not taken into account unless there’s A TON of them.

Honestly, if you’re not going to take the class, then you should do a lot of practice tests. In my class, everyone was a native speaker except for me, so we did very little grammar and vocabulary, and a TON of practice. The most important thing about the spanish exam is really understanding the structure of the exam and knowing how each part is graded. (The same rubrics are used every year).

Here’s a Breakdown of the exam structure:

  1. Multiple Choice (50%) A. Lectura B. Pruebas Auditivas
  2. Free Response Questions (50%) A. Email Response (15 min) B. Informative Essay (75 min) - You take a stance on an argument and use three sources for evidence: 1 is an
    article, one is a graph/chart, and one is an audio source. C. Conversation Recording - You have to record yourself responding to a recorded person like in a conversation. D. Comparison Presentation Recording - You record yourself giving a mock presentation to the class that is about a
    cultural topic that you compare with your home community and a spanish speaking community (ex: Florida with Argentina). The presentation is 2 minutes long, and you have 4 minutes to prepare it.