I started taking Mandarin in sixth grade, and I’m a rising junior planning to take the AP Chinese exam in May. Thus, I will have done approximately six years of Mandarin before the exam. Last year, I also studied abroad at a high school in China for three months. Given this information, how hard do you think it would be to take the AP Chinese exam for a non-native speaker and without the actual AP course (my small high school doesn’t offer it.) I’m pretty motivated to study for it, and my Mandarin class at school is very small (4 students). Plus I’m really close with my teacher, so she can help me prepare for it after school and such. Do you think it’s doable?
No, it’s testing to a standard - in this case, 4th semester college Chinese. Keep in mind, that this is a relatively small amount of test-takers; 10K vs. over 500K for AP English Language.
AP Calculus BC also has a high percentage of 5’s (~45%). Nobody would argue that this test is too easy. It’s just that in both examples, the percentage of test-takers who are extremely well prepared for the exam is quite high.
As someone who took the AP Chinese exam this year and got a 5 ( ), I would definitely recommend using the Barron’s book to prepare. Make sure that you work especially on your weaker areas in terms of speaking, writing, listening, and reading, since you won’t be taking the class. That is what I did once a week, and it worked for me! (However, I am Chinese, so I guess it’s a little different.) Also, make sure you know the format of the test so that you know somewhat what to expect. I know it’s still early, but good luck! It’s doable.
I just watched chinese tv shows and listened to Chinese music. I would recommend looking at Chinese subtitles to grow accustomed to words and to repeat cool catch phrases and memorize songs. I had to spend one day learned hanyu pinyin or you could try bopomofo but literally no one does it. Anyway, it’s a fairly easy 5 for self studying (thank God for the distributions lol. I was talking wack!)
I took the AP Chinese exam in sophomore year, but I’ve been learning Mandarin since I was in elementary (I’m an international student from Hong Kong). Almost everyone at my school takes the AP Chinese exam without the course. I think self-studying would be plausible if and only if you really commit to practicing your Chinese. It’s not like other exams where you can just memorize/understand the information - you have to be able to converse and write with proper grammar. For me, the speaking part was the hardest, because I only spoke Mandarin in class - I imagine it must be even harder if you don’t have the opportunity to communicate verbally with it at all. It’s probably possible to self-study if you read more Chinese books, and make sure you know a little bit about different parts of Chinese culture. For one of the speaking questions, I was asked what my favorite Chinese film was, so exposure to different Chinese publications and media is ideal.
Thank you @miwo331 . But I would think self-study might be a little hard for her. She does not have many chances to pratice Chinese after class, so I was thinking to find a Mandarin tutor, maybe they can give some suggestions to get high score in the test. Thanks again!
@carebell There are many practice AP Chinese material on the collegeboard website- they can give you an idea of the kind of questions the test will ask. Knowing Chinese culture is important too; for example for the presentation question I had to talk about regional cuisine (I chose to talk about Sichuan cuisine).
Also, how advanced is your daughter? Is she fluent? Can she read and write? For the reading sections it’s imperative that she’s capable of understanding shortened phrases/conventions that would appear on signs (for example knowing how to read “for sale” signs, public notices like “no smoking”, etc). Being able to read newspaper/article-like passages is ideal as well.
), I would definitely recommend using the Barron’s book to prepare. Make sure that you work especially on your weaker areas in terms of speaking, writing, listening, and reading, since you won’t be taking the class. That is what I did once a week, and it worked for me! (However, I am Chinese, so I guess it’s a little different.) Also, make sure you know the format of the test so that you know somewhat what to expect. I know it’s still early, but good luck! It’s doable.