<p>I've had four years of spanish as of junior year, and I'm taking AP Spanish Language this coming senior year (WHOO 07!!).
However, I'm taking it via distance learning... so this is where my questions start. First off, is it even wise trying to take a language class distance learning? I'll have some help (DL classes are in the library, and the head librarian helps out... and he also happens to be the ex-AP spanish teacher), but I don't think it'll be all the time (Librarians are busy people, it turns out), but other than the occasional conversation with the librarian and some forced, weird one-person conversations with myself... I won't have much verbal practice. Scads of writing, but very little verbal.</p>
<p>Second off, I hear that on the AP spanish lang exam that they record you speaking spanish? I'm not too familiar with the format of the exam, so could somebody tell me? </p>
<p>And lastly, how hard do you think the exam is overall? I think my background in spanish is pretty decent (although I do have one semester grade for spanish IV as a C... but I attribute that to the fact that I was absent a lot the one quarter that dragged my semester grade down, plus last year, I took spanish IV as an independent learning class), but as in all languages, verbal practice is muy importante. </p>
<p>Me ayudes, por favor! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ^__^</p>
<p>Hi. I think I can help you since I took AP Spanish Language as an independent study last year and I got a 4 on the exam. I met with my Spanish teacher about once a week for a half hour or so. It was an opportunity to speak in Spanish and also learn new grammatical concepts like the subjunctive. Mainly, I read through the textbook and did the exercises. Another thing that I tried to do was watch some Spanish television at least a few times a week. It got me really comfortable understanding spoken Spanish, which is a huge skill on the AP. Also, for my class, I had to write a composition in Spanish (about a page double spaced) once or twice each month. This really improved my writing.</p>
<p>The AP is a very long test with a lot of different sections:
I. Listening Comprehension-- You hear a passage in Spanish and you have to answer multiple choice questions about it. Some passages are short, some are long, and some are dialogues.
II. Reading Comprehension--This is a very strenuous section. You have, I believe, eight passages to read in one hour and about 6 questions for each one.<br>
III. Fill-ins-- You have twenty sentences each with a blank. Sometimes, you have to modify a verb, a noun, etc to make it grammatical.
IV. Essay--Usually the topic is something about culture (i.e. why are foreign exchange programs good) or about your views on society (i.e. why do young people enjoy electronics, what are you excited about for college, etc.)<br>
V. Oral part--You have a tape recorder.<br>
First, you see a sequence of pictures. You have to talk about them for two minutes and create a story. It doesn't matter how many you talk about as long as you speak fluently.</p>
<p>Then, you have to respond to five questions that the tape asks you. Usually, they are about education or some semi-political topic. You can really answer anything as long as you speak for twenty seconds for each question.</p>
<p>I hope this helps! Buy an AP review book and start doing exercises fairly early. Then you'll be familiar with the format.</p>
<p>yeah, my Spanish teacher said they were adding a dbq-like question (i don't know if its the truth, she was a pretty stupid person) thank god I took it last year, I barely scraped a 5</p>
<p>Holy cow, DBQ? I heard about those in APUSH (and most of my friends said that they were the reason they they got 2s and 3s), and because I never took APUSH (stupid counselor) I will not know how to write DBQs. <em>spaz attack</em>
But the pictures thing I was sort of looking foward to... you can sort of practice that by just looking at random pictures anywhere and making up a story, I guess (in spanish, of course ^^). Meh.</p>
<p>Does anybody know the difference between spanish literature and language and their AP exams?</p>