<p>"'Are we getting more 1s and 2s? Absolutely,' said Trevor Packer, vice president of the Advanced Placement program. 'But are we getting more 3s, 4s and 5s? Even more so. So the question is whether that increase in the percentage of low scores is a reasonable tradeoff for the even larger growth in high scores. And I dont know an educator who wouldnt think its a good tradeoff to take the risk and give more courses that we know have been good for the few.'"</p>
<p>in my opinion, the biggest reason for the failure rate is that many of the AP students are unmotivated to study and that they take AP classes for the sole benefit of impressing colleges rather than prepare for the AP exam.</p>
<p>^That’s so true. I’ve seen it in my high school over and over again. Students will just take AP courses to impress colleges, and often times, they end up failing the exam.</p>
<p>Yup, student motivation is number one reason a student will fail. This is what it comes down to. Either you want to pass the ap exam or you don’t. If you want to pass, you’ll utilize all the resources available to you in order to pass. If you don’t really want to pass you’ll try wining the exam. </p>
<p>I see people all the time on here say you don’t need to read the textbook and how you can study the week before and easily get a 4,5. Hmm, I wonder how these people REALLY preform on the exam, I am sure its poor and their claims of 4,5s are completely bogus.</p>
<p>One trend that exacerbates the failure rate; more schools are requiring students that take AP classes (and get the GPA bonus!) to take the corresponding AP tests.</p>
<p>Some students “game” the system by taking an AP class and getting bonus points for their GPA but don’t even attempt the exam.</p>
<p>We have to take the exam if we take the class - it’s not an option. If you don’t pay for the exam, the school actually bills you as an obligation fee. For the most part, I would say that you definitely have to study for AP exams, but it really depends on the quality of the teacher. Sophomore year I had a fantastic teacher for AP World, reviewed over a few weeks but didn’t really “study” that intensely, and got a 5. Junior year I had an awful teacher for APUSH and studied like crazy. I think there are some students who can get away with doing little work and still do well, though - my ex-boyfriend, for example, never read any of the assigned chapters in APUSH, barely studied for the exam, and got a 5. Go figure.</p>
<p>My school offers students that take the AP Exam the option of not having to take the final for the class, so a lot of kids just take the exam for that reason.</p>
<p>I completely disagree. I found the AP exams to be very easy. This is embarrassing, but I took AP US History last year and did not read any of the textbook - maybe just the first chapter or two. I got a five on the exam. I had an extremely poor teacher for AP European History. The class average was a 55 on tests and exams but he curved them all 20% so we’d pass. I got a four. For AP Environmental Science I studied policy but never science; my AP Lit class wasn’t particularly rigorous. The result? A four and a five, respectively. And I have never, ever studied for an AP exam. I’m not bragging. But it’s not that difficult to get a four or a five if you know how the AP exams are written. The multiple choice can easily be gamed and as long as you write something coherent in a certain format, you will get points for the free responses. Some tests, like Human Geography and Environmental Science, can be scored well on just by paying attention to what’s going on in the world. Something like physics or calculus is, clearly, going to take more effort.</p>
<p>You’re also a regular poster on CC, which probably puts you in at least the top .1% of high school students. It means very little that you or I find AP tests easy.</p>
<p>I don’t get how anyone can get a 1 on an AP test if they took the class and actually tried. With good guessing and BS on the FRQs, you can manage at least a 2 on any AP test if you have any prior experience and have any degree of test-taking ability. So, my guess is those that get a 1 (besides on French Language, which is notoriously hard), either did not take the class or did not make any effort to pass the test.</p>
<p>I know, looking at Canadian stats and American stats, that Canadian students have a much higher pass rate on AP exams. In fact, we generally get more 5’s than any other score. Of course there are jokes about “stupid Americans” lowering the bellcurve for us, but I think it’s because AP exams are much more exclusive here. In British Columbia, at least, we don’t get a GPA boost from AP exams, so generally they are only taken by students who want the survey experience or credits. I’ve gotten the impression that AP’s are treated a lot more casually in the US…</p>
<p>I don’t know about “casual”, but the GPA boost certainly makes a lot of people want to take APs, who I don’t think would otherwise. It doesn’t help that people are starting to believe that you need to take them to get into any halfway decent college.</p>
<p>wow, i totally agree with that statement. The fact that all of us are speaking on this website puts us easily in the top 5-10% of students in the country. Even more so if you feel that you didn’t need to study. I took both the US history AP this year and the European History one my sophomore year (last year). I got a five on both exams. But this was only, I repeat, only due to at least 50 hours studying history for each exam. It was not easy, as these were the only AP exams I took in 2 years (2 in 2 different years). I am proud of you and glad that you didn’t need to study, but you can’t say that it is “easy” in general. For you, yes.</p>
<p>My school district has had a really odd policy regarding AP exams.
If you take an AP class you MUST take the AP exam. The school board pays for every single student who sits in an AP class to take the exam in May. None of the students have to lift a finger. However, if you do not show up for the exam you must pay for the exam you missed, you are docked a letter grade in the class (A to B, B to C, etc), and the addition weight that class would have given you in your weighted GPA is dropped as well.</p>
<p>The result was countless students sleeping through the exams and drawing on their free response booklets.</p>
<p>They, just this year, changed this policy completely because the school board can not afford to pay for exams. So, everything is “normal” now.</p>