<p>why does it have to make the classes SOO hard???? i always hear people going...my daughter is tkaing 5 APs and geting straight As! from other schools. here it's IMPOSSIBLE to get straight As unless you don't go to school for 1/3 of the year (which is what our valedictorian a couple years back did, she had a "heart problem" diagnosed by her mother who was a doctor)</p>
<p>it's like, yeah for 1/2 of the stuff you teach us we'll get a 5 on the AP exam already plus 800 SAT scores. so what's the point of making it so hard?!!@$%# it's not like we're gonna remember anyways</p>
<p>teachers have gone to other "better" schools to teach and they found that our classes are so much harder</p>
<p>lets see</p>
<p>ap english - nobody ahs gotten an A since like, 1840
apush - a couple teachers never give As. like, ever. but it's all fine since i don't have them =)</p>
<p>blahblahblah. and our tests are like 3 days long consecutive.</p>
<p>We have a couple classes like that too- AP Physics, for one. AP Gov is also especially hard- the class is very enjoyable (I love it) but the tests kill me.</p>
<p>Taking all APs at our school is VERY rare, and when you do, it's pretty hard to get all As. </p>
<p>But, remember, it's better to learn extra than not enough. I know a lot of people in different schools that do very well in their AP classes but the classes didn't properly prepare them at all- which defeats half the purpose.</p>
<p>Narcissa, i'm in the polar opposite of your situation. We have 1 AP class. the highest SAT score achieved was a 2020. We haven't had national merit since who knows when. We blow $15,000 in 4 days to send a basketball team to state yet all other clubs have to fundraise. Nobody has heard of math olympiads, science camps, etc.</p>
<p>So... at least you get the opportunity to succeed and get a good education. Try viewing it that way, hopefully it'll help. if it doesn't you can always tape a picture of your school/teachers on the wall and start throwing things at it. :)</p>
<p>it's worse when your classes are dumbed down and taught by people who have no idea what they're talking about...</p>
<p>my APUSH teacher told us about Benjamin Franklin's presidency in addition to the New Hampshire monarchy of presidents during the 18th century. She also told us today that Teddy Roosevelt was able to pick his predecessor, and he was the first person in United States history to do so.</p>
<p>Teddy Roosevelt did handpick Taft...I suppose that based on your wording it would be ambiguous, because the voters did still choose him. But Teddy endorsed him in 1908.</p>
<p>Narcissa, sometimes making a class difficult can actually make the class more fun by making discussions more interesting. If it doesn't work that way in your school...well...um...suck it up. I guess.</p>
<p>I'm closer to D-Yu's situation, but definitely not as bad. We have a moderate number of AP classes but prerequisites and the fact that they're in different fields makes it impossible to take all APs and difficult to take more than a few.</p>
<p>
[quote]
it's worse when your classes are dumbed down and taught by people who have no idea what they're talking about...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I definitely second that. I would love to be able to complain about my classes being a challenge, or that it is difficult to get an A. I assume that if all of your classes are up to this level of rigor, you must be learning something in the long run? To me, obtaining knowledge is more beneficial than some easy A in an AP class that everyone around the school considers a joke, or exists simply for the purpose of GPA-inflation, completely forgetting about almost 80% failing exam scores. D-Yu's explanation sounds very familiar to my situation, except we have a few AP classes, though the successes are very limited.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that the OPs situation doesn't suck too, as I've also realized that some classes are made hard for reasons that have no academic gain. Stuff like this really makes me wish that there was a completely unified AP curriculum -- same textbooks, same assignments, same courseload for all students across the country.</p>
<p>proletariat, she told us that he picked his PREdecessor...(I understand he picked Taft to FOLLOW him), but my teacher was saying he picked the person before him...yes, she is that stupid...I was just showing the OP that while it sucks to have a really hard teacher, it sucks to have the other end of the spectrum too...</p>
<p>^lol yeah, that does suck. but the thing i don't like about having hard teachers, is that we don't really get credit for having harder classses. like, when a college is reviewing applications and grades from a kid from school A, and a kid from school B, they don't really know that one school has harder classes (and therefore lower grades) than a kid from another school. cuz my school is classified as a large, competitive public school, as are many of the schools around mine, and we're basically all considered together</p>
<p>so we basically have to work harder while we listen to other ppl from other schools complain about how their AP bio class is so hard....but in reality it isn't. my Honors Bio teacher used to teach there, she knows...</p>
<p>we'll always learn more, i guess. but it's not like we'll remember forever the names of all 7 layers of the intestinal mucus membrane and the names of the cells that make it up.</p>
<p>oh and some teachers are hard AND don't teach! they give busy work for HW that you HAVE to complete, cuz she goes over every single page and every single problem and every work that you did, and the HW is like 75% of the grade. AND she delights in failing students. in math, she's like...40% of the class got below a C- (no joke). i think this class is really stupid, none of you should've taken the class, but other than that I'm not going to do anything to fix your grades. If I gave you a D, i guess that's only cuz you were unlucky to be born without knowing everything you needed to know (she honestly says things like this...no joke)</p>
<p>and then in the other class which has the exact same tests and curriculm, everyone gets As or Bs. and then the teacher complains that she gets all the "stupid AP students" because she is a new teacher. which is obviously not true since scheduling is done randomly/based on other classes you take. WHAT A FAG</p>
<p>on top of that, my school doesn't weigh freshmen and sophmore AP / honors classes.</p>
<p>"we'll always learn more, i guess. but it's not like we'll remember forever the names of all 7 layers of the intestinal mucus membrane and the names of the cells that make it up."</p>