<p>My school is switching from a 6 period schedule to either a 7 period or block schedule. I initially wanted the block because </p>
<p>I got 8 classes...meaning more electives...
but then my friend told me that if I were to get AP Chems first semester...then I would be screwed for the test</p>
<p>...and it is therefore recomended that you take a "study session chems" for the second semester. Meaning 2 years' credit of chems work! AND I would only have 4 classes because they would ALL be AP. </p>
<p>Some of the AP classes taken in the fall have a spring "trailer" - a half-block period. This is done for English Lit, Calculus, and the science APs. If there is no trailer, then the teachers usually offer afterschool or weekend review sessions for the fall students.</p>
<p>I find the whole concept of squeezing Chemistry into one semester wry. Don't know how your school is planning to get this done, but I know a semester's worth of honors chemistry (we don't have AP) was insufficient for the SAT II by far. This goes for most of our classes. There was a time before block scheduling, and most teachers I've talked to agree that block scheduling has seriously hindered the amount of stuff they can teach. </p>
<p>Block scheduling is not necessarily good. There's a huge paper about it somewhere online, a whole diatribe against it, mainly arguing that retainment of knowledge is low.</p>
<p>AP classes have an A/B schedule where you would still have four periods under block but every other day, attend alternating classes. Thus, you would have AP Chem year long but every other day. Since this is only for AP, you could still take classes like French 2 and 3 in the same year.</p>
<p>if the people making the schedule are smart they wouldn't split classes by semester, they would alternate days, so you take every class all year, every other day.</p>
<p>My school had 7 periods, and 1357 on one day, and 2456 on the other day. 5th was shorter (obviously), and you just alternated.</p>