<p>At least AP Euro is not as bad as AP World History - you have to learn the history of the world! My DD had close to two hours a night and the class met every other Saturday as well. English was much easier nbecasue there is nothng you really have to study for the test itself - it's just a question of what the teacher assigns. For the hisotry courses, you really do have to know all those dates, etc.</p>
<p>Most of my classes are run just like college courses...in that a lot of the work involves reading or practice problems that aren't required. (I go to a catholic school of about 850 total students) The papers are time-consuming though. My AP Comparative Govt teacher assigns reading every night (which I don't always do) and a 6 page paper (well, he says it's supposed to be 6 pages - generally speaking ends up anywhere between 8-12 pages) every two weeks. AP Lit - generally speaking, no homework but we have papers, tests on the material, vocab ...things of that nature.
AP Physics - quiz every week, test every chapter, optional homework problems for each chapter. My anatomy class grade is based almost solely on a quiz everyday and a test at the end of each chapter.</p>
<p>The result is...some days I have very little to do, maybe an hour of reading and a couple of practice problems if I feel the need. Some days I'm spending 10-14 hours straight on papers; that of course, is a timing choice on my part though - there is definitely enough time to complete everything without pulling near-all-nighters. Overall, I'm pretty happy...freshman year was the exception - no AP classes but several hours of homework each night.</p>
<p>I can't recall my S spending much more than 2 hours a night on homework, combined, for all his subjects. Perhaps he did more, but I don't recall it. He took mostly AP and honors courses. Of course his school had the policy for some courses that if one scored a 4 or 5 on the AP test, the student received a retroactive A. In one class a 3 brought a retroactive B. A couple of times those retroactive scores saved his lazy butt. He thought the AP courses in particular were boring and more like test preparation than engaging college-level work. He would spend very little time preparing for the tests as well, which would drive me a little bonkers, but he always did well. Now that he is in college, its entirely different. He spends hours and hours studying and preparing for class, and loves it. Nothing he did in high school seemed to predict this would happen. I was counting on the intellectual atmosphere of his college to have a good effect, and indeed it has. So much for high school predicting college outcomes, and obviously doing a ton of homework was not required either. (I always hated homework, seldom did it, so it is hard for me to get on my kids' cases about it.)</p>
<p>I spend 2 hrs/wk on AP Euro (usu. just the night before the test) and AP Bio is variable since my teacher quit two weeks ago... but maybe 1 hr/wk? I have 3 other AP classes, and I never spend more than 2 hrs per night on homework unless I have a huge project, essay, or test.</p>
<p>6-10 hours per week, per class. More if an exam or a big essay is imminent...as in due tomorrow.</p>
<p>So much depends on the individual teacher & subject. My son has 5 APs this semester & honestly doesn't seem to be spending much more time studying this year than his prior years of HS. He still goes to sleep at a reasonable time & has time to play his video games. He does learn material very quickly & study efficiently & multi-tasks well. He says that honestly learning Mandarin has been tougher than any AP course (or actually all his AP courses combined). He only took it for 3 years & is glad he's done with it for his senior year. Oh yeah, he gets Bs & As (weighted GPA 3.7) & his APs are mostly 5s with one 4.</p>
<p>So much depends upon the student, their background knowledge and strengths and weaknesses, that the same AP can take vastly different amounts of time for different students in the same class. </p>
<p>But teachers can also make a huge difference. My son is in a large high school, with different teachers teaching the same AP. The work load varies widely across teachers.</p>
<p>I'm with you tho--no high school teacher should have a blank check on a students time. Are you logging the time that your son is spending each night on that class? You might want to create a paper trail. If you track homework time in each of his courses, it will be very apparent that this teacher's demands are out of line.</p>
<p>Kate: you're on the right track. I think that the teacher feels insecure since she has no control over the AP Exam so she tries to have the kids nearly memorize the book. </p>
<p>Another thing that annoys me is that she is too lazy to update her stuff. The kids got new books this year (new publisher, new everything) yet she still uses the tests and study guides that she made for the previous years' books.</p>
<p>jlauer-</p>
<p>have you sat down with your son to see if he is handling the work in the most efficient way possible? Three or four hours a night really is too much--I agree that the teacher may be unrealistic in her expectations and just may not be a good teacher overall but maybe you could help your son cut down the amount of time he is spending by observing him as he is doing the work to see if his study skills are adequate. This is NOT criticism of your son. It's just that I think the reading/writing skills needed in the AP history and English classes are different than what a student could get by with earlier.</p>
<p>My sons each found the adjustment to the AP level history courses a challenge because of not just the volume of reading, but the level of reading as well. Chapters are not 1--12 pages, they're 30- 50 pages; no cute little boxes telling the students the highlights of each little subunit, no bullet points done for them, no illustrations, etc. The writing is more dense, the vocabulary at a higher level, the ideas more sophisticated--it just takes a lot longer to get through it. </p>
<p>The formal homework is more involved too--it's no longer just answering the questions at the end of each chapter. Then there is the informal homework as well--it is essential to take good notes on all the reading because there is no other way to go over all of the material before each exam, and that is time consuming too.</p>
<p>My sons each got better at it as the year wore on but it took time.</p>
<p>Last year as a junior I took 3 AP courses - US History, Calc, and Biology. I can honestly say that I RARELY spent more than two hours per week on all of them put together. Sure, there were huge stay-up-til-two-am projects, portfolios, essays, etc. but we have double periods every other day for AP courses (41 minutes one day, 85 minutes the next), which enabled us to get a lot of work done in class. Projects and essays were pretty much the only thing I had to do outside of class - I rarely had to study, with the exception of Calc (haha!). However, I wound up with excellent grades, and although I did not take the AP test (I opted for college credit applicable at nearly every school in state) many people in my classes did, and most scored quite well (4s and 5s). </p>
<p>This year I'm taking AP Psych, and I have to say it has completely made me want to change my major. I spend roughly 15 minutes a week on the course, and I couldn't tell you one thing I've learned. Somehow, I still have a 95...</p>
<p>
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Another thing that annoys me is that she is too lazy to update her stuff. The kids got new books this year (new publisher, new everything) yet she still uses the tests and study guides that she made for the previous years' books.
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</p>
<p>Ugh, my Honors World History teacher did this and it drove me crazy! She would forget to give us all the notes from the old text so there would be test questions that weren't from our notes or book. The class was hard for me as a sophomore, but in AP Euro as a senior, I realize that I just wasn't ready for the amount of work it took. I've developed better study skills, so I study less and get higher test scores over harder material now.</p>
<p>I took AP U.S. History as a sophmore last year and everyone had to eat, sleep, and breath American History. Everyday you would do homework until 10 at night if you came home after school right away and later if you had sports, then you did your other homework. It was this way all the way up until test day. We had these binders that had all of our work stored in them from the year and we burned them in a bonfire a couple days after the test after we could all finally relax. It was hard, but if got a 4 on the test so it paid off. I never had homework to take home really after test day from any class because i was able to organize my time the whole year to the point i got the rest of my work done in school, so it helps a lot. I’m taking the ACT’s this September and I plan on getting a 34. Study habits from AP U.S. History is helping me do this. It’s well worth it, but you have to work really really really really hard!!</p>
<p>Folks…this thread is FIVE years old! Anyone posting on the original thread is either well into college or a college grad.</p>
<p>My daughter spent hours and hours and hours on her AP homework. She took three this past year, her senior year, at one point she had 4 because Calc AB was the full year, and BC started mid year. The child rarely got to sleep before 1 am. 2am, sometimes 3 am was more the norm.</p>
<p>Its actually five and a HALF years old! My then HS sophomore is now a college senior!!!</p>
<p>And five years later the situation is still the same. There is still a variety of on answers based with variables of AP (or IB) course and school and teacher. Ideally the GCs make sure that students are not signing up for an impossible workload. Sadly this is often not the case. So it’s good that parents are questioning things early, while still time to adjust schedules.</p>
<p>I think it is that way because AP Euro is definitely one of the challenging AP’s. It is a lot of historical knowledge & a extremely big time period to study. It is usually 1 or 2 hours of homework & mostly the homework is not busy work, but it is reading the textbook or some excerpts or documents. Reading is vital because the DBQ on the AP Exam is challenging. AP Euro is just in general a lot of work, but if your son likes history, it is a really enjoyable class!</p>
<p>Son took an AP Biology course online. The expectation was 2.5 - 3.0 hours a day of work.</p>
<p>I think that AP course, like college course, can be taught at various levels of depth and detail and that the amount of time to meet the teacher’s expectations can vary widely. When I hear of students taking 7 APs, I don’t see any way that they’re spending 2-3 hours per day per course - something has to give.</p>
<p>It also may vary on preparation. In NY anyone who takes AP Euro already has two years of Global History. And in our school anyone who takes Calculus has already covered at least some of the calc curriculum in pre-calc.</p>
<p>About an hour per night per class is about right. (You have to plan to do some work on Friday afternoon or night and several hours over the weekend to give you some room during the week.)</p>