<p>There are students who receive 1's and 2's on AP tests and it absolutely not the fault of the teacher. There are some students (or parents) who push to get into these courses, and really have no business being there. </p>
<p>Taking the course, even taught by an excellent teacher, is no guarantee of achieving a 4 or 5.</p>
<p>I haven't read all the posts, but if she got a good grade in the class I'd certainly want to take a hard look at her school. Often kids who don't do well on APs don't do well on SATIIs and that's a bigger problem. The issue is there's a problem here in teaching or comprehension and you probably want to figure out which one and do what you can to change it.</p>
<p>I will throw my POV in even though I don't have as much to add as others with more experience.
I think it does depend a lot on the teacher- just like any class- and while the texts are the same list- what I saw was about 8 books that were approved for use.</p>
<p>For example- my daughter took APEuro in 10th grade.
This was impressive to me.
I had never heard of AP classes when I was in school, my oldest didn't take any or the tests when she was in high school and my youngest had been in SPED in middle school, but in honors english & history in 9th grade and the history teacher recommended her to AP.</p>
<p>However- she was first in one class with one teacher- then the school shuffled people around and she was switched to another teacher.
Each teacher used a different book and had a different teaching style.
She didn't take the AP test in 10th grade, but this past year with APUSH, she had a teacher that other parents who hear more of the gossip, wangled their kids out of his class.</p>
<p>I wasn't going to do that, even though I knew that the policy had changed and she would be required to take the test.
She did study a lot- but she also has other classes as well ( no duh) not to mention other obstacles like dyslexia, so its hard to say if it was the LDs or her teacher that resulted in a lower test score- ( she has a 2)</p>
<p>But frankly- I don't care about that- although I am happy she doesn't attend a school where the grade is dependent on your AP score. ( she has a B, and that was after extra work by D and her teacher to make up or redo other things that she had trouble with- the frustrating thing about her type of LD is that it is very uneven- she can do amazing in something, yet, in something that doesn't seem as difficult, she struggles- it makes it hard to anticipate when she will need extra support)</p>
<p>Ive never taken an SAT or AP test, but when I was in community college and high school, if I had had any exposure to the subject at all, I could do fairly well on the test ( these were often multiple choice) because I could figure out what they were thinking when they wrote it.
I couldn't * explain* how I knew it, but it was like a puzzle and fun- I think perhaps my oldest was the same- which might explain why despite her LDs she scores so high on IQ tests.</p>
<p>I think for some kids- it may be plenty they are taking the AP class. That is the most rigourous class in the school- I assume, whether or not they get a great AP score from the test. Other kids- may really want to get higher placement in college, or may want to have the most competitive coursework they can, so they not only want to take more AP classes- but have the most demanding teacher.</p>
<p>I really don't know how AP tests are set up but Im thinking that lack of familiarity with the format and about strategizing how to approach the test, really hurts my D. She tends to have* a lot* of anxiety in artificial situations, especially those that are unfamilar ( for the AP test- she had accomodations, but had to go to district head quarters instead of taking it at her school), and the stress might make all her calming thoughts go out the window.</p>
<p>One thing I have tried which worked for me- but it wouldn't work for my daughter because she has little sense of smell- is to use a scent ( like a scented oil- I like Clary Sage), while studying- on your wrist for example.
When you are then taking the test- use the same scent- and it helps to access those memories.</p>
<p>It can't hurt and it might help :)</p>
<p>We did however- get a study</a> guidefor APUSH after recommendations on CC.
It helped her a great deal with the class & I assume that it also did with the test.
In fact while she generally resents if I ever get a study book, because she apparently thinks that she shouldn't "need one", a few months ago she said to me " mom, have I ever thanked you for getting me this book? It gives me so much more detail and context that makes it easier to understand and more interesting, it helps so much, thank you!" :D</p>
<p>You would have to know my daughter to know that for her to say that- it must have made a ** huge** difference.</p>
<p>Agreeing first of all with the prevailing feeling that the low AP score is not much to worry about, and need not be reported. Now for my random comments on AP's: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I think that the AP program has grown a bit too much without enough checks and balances. I feel that the audit is a good idea and a good attempt at making sure schools/teachers at least put some thought into their curriculum, but I'm dubious as to whether or not it will make a big difference. Who knows, maybe it will bring some teachers in line, but knowing how the public school system works, I'm not holding my breath. </p></li>
<li><p>I would take a long look at the school to try to avoid low scores in the future. I've observed several "AP phenomenons" at my school that I have seen mentioned elsewhere that I think are probably pretty common:</p>
<pre><code> a. Sometimes a class is an "easy" AP class that is known to be a more average student's AP class. Classes like AP Psych, AP Environmental Science, and AP Micro would fall into this category in my school. That's not to say that they aren't worthwhile classes, but these subjects tend to have lower scores because they were more open/not as rigorous as other AP courses. I would only be concerned about avoiding these classes if the "less rigorous" distinction applies...there are certain things that a teacher NEEDS to do to prepare their students for an AP exam (like explain bizarre free response ?'s), and if they don't do that (yes you, lousy econ teacher!), it makes it very hard on the students, no matter what their particular talent in the subject is
b. Sliding scale grading. This can happen in any subject, but I noticed it more so in English and History, perhaps because of the more subjective subject matter. I don't know if there is an official name for it, but what I mean by sliding scale grading is that only a few kids--the ones who worked hard and really understood the class--will gets A's, but almost EVERY other kid will get a B, from the kids for whom English or History just isn't their particular talent (but who are still smart and/or hardworking) to the kids who never read a book and/or have no particularly special understanding of the material (my nice way of saying that they aren't up to the rigors of the material). Sliding scale grading means that while a few A students will get the top scores, many B students will score only 3's or even 2's or 1's. Basically, sliding scale grading enables students to slack through a class (or stay in a class that they don't belong in) without negatively affecting their grades. It can create some nasty surprises come AP time, however.
c. Sometimes you just get unlucky. I got a 2 on this year's AP Physics C-Mechanics exam, and I'm not (that) terrible at Mechanics, plus a 2 is out of line with the rest of my AP scores (6 5's, 3 4's). Sure, my teacher was flaky, and I should have studied more, but I'm a good, advanced math student (Calculus and Physics ability seem intertwined to me), and I didn't think that the exam was particularly hard (I mean, I thought all of our Physics exams during the class were hard, but this one didn't seem any worse). Plus, I got a 4 on the practice exam that we took back in January...even counting off for guessing, it would have been at worst a high 3 had it been an actual AP exam. But, if you get into a self-selected exam with real science-y people, if you haven't been studying something full time for a few months (we moved on to E and M in February), and if you get unlucky with the free response (hard for you, but not hard for most testers), then you are out in the cold.
d. Of course, it goes both ways--sometimes you get lucky. We only studied E and M for 3 months, and I have no background/intrinsic understanding of either topic, and I was hitting senioritis towards the end of the year. Admittedly, there were whole days--many of them!--where I honestly couldn't have told you what we talked about because I was doing detailed homework for other classes during my Physics period. Add on to that a flaky teacher who a) allows his students to actively and obviously not pay any attention during class (I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, but it wasn't a hard-working environment) and b) no longer assigns homework, and I was in BAD shape for the E and M exam. I took our final (a practice E and M exam) and scored a highish 3, but with no points taken off for guessing. I went into the E and M exam having crammed for a few hours, but still with little true understanding of the topic...and got a 4 on the exam. There's NO WAY that I understand E and M better than Mechanics...but with a curve involved, I guess I understood it a lot better compared to how the entire group of testers understood it. In case you were wondering, I got an A- both semesters of the class, but that grade requires a whole other rambling post's worth of explanation.
</code></pre></li>
</ol>
<p>Honestly, though, my scores make sense to me. I'm just talented at English and History, and as long as I had decent teachers who did their jobs explaining the structure of the AP tests (and I did) I was fine. Additionally, I'm good--though not, in my opinion, specially gifted--at Math and German, and with my own hard work and conscientious teachers who put us through our paces, I did fine on those exams as well. In Micro and Macro, I was lazy and I had a poor teacher, and even though I should have gotten a 5 on those exams, I got 4's...scores that I deserved, but not the best I was capable of. And with a flaky teacher and an active dislike of any subject classified as Science, I doomed myself to a mediocre score on Physics...and that's what I got.</p>
<p>DD got her score today (also a sophomore). I haven't opened it but I would not be surprised if she scored poorly. I will not have her retake the test. My older son did well on some APs and badly on his AP stats. He got college credit for the majority of the APs he took in HS. If he hadn't, no big deal. The test score matters if you are hoping for college credit. If you are terribly concerned about college admissions, you can pay the college board to withhold an AP score.</p>
<p>I think advantagious touched on something important- </p>
<p>Once you have actually taken several AP classes, you have a better gauge on your own strengths vs. the strength of your teachers and the schools curriculum/AP preparation. It's folly to make a judgement and therefore "beat yourself up" when you've only taken one or two AP tests. Most students will find that if they were to take 4+ APs, they would do very well on some, not so well on others. That's life. </p>
<p>Our counselors always recommended that students take their APs in their "strengths". That is very true, but sometimes stretching yourself a little in a "weakness", especially if it's in critical reading or writing, is a good thing. My son has very strong interests in math and science, not so much in language arts. He went ahead and took AP Lit and Lang anyway, just to improve those skills. In Lit he ended up with a 2, in Lang/Comp a 4. His maths and sciences were all 5s. Oh well, in the long run he will be better off for having studied something NOT in his comfort zone even though he "failed" the AP exam. Nobody ever got hurt having to read great literature.</p>
<p>In the words of T. Roosevelt: </p>
<p>"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."</p>
<p>I think even more than an audit schools should be required to tell you what the range of AP scores was for each teacher that teaches a subject. Most of the teachers my son had would tell us at Meet the Teacher the night that their students got "mostly 4s and 5s", but no one gave us the exact numbers. So far I have no complaints as my son has gotten 5s on everything that we've seen scores for. (Don't know the most recent scores yet except that they were good enough that CMU has given him credit!) I also would really like Newsweek to stop giving brownie points for schools that offer tons of APs without giving some kind of weight to how kids actually do on the AP tests.</p>
<p>mathmom,
I agree with your point about giving extra points to schools that offer lots of APs without attention to rigor or quality.</p>
<p>My older son actually got "zinged" by his school because of this. His school offers 20- but half of those are in humanities, foreign languages, and softer social sciences. Out of the other 10, about 4 (English and social studies) are quite "easy" and the pass/fail ratios on the tests are not very impressive.</p>
<p>My son took nothing but Honors classes from the get go, then as a junior/senior took APs in solid math and sciences, which are really "gut" classes (2 hours minimum per night), with a couple English APs on the side. As a result, he didn't fill his basket with a lot of those other APs and when it came time to check the box of "Rigor of Curriculum", the counselor would not check "Most Rigorous at the school". ACK. We were told by one admissions counselor at a selective U that this did hurt his application.</p>
<p>And I too find it disingenuous that our school will not publish the results of their AP tests.</p>
<p>I'm quite sure son's GC DID check the most rigorous box for him and he'd taken 4 APs (the school offers 6) and another half-year college level course. He'd skipped a year of French, taken the only honors course offered by the school, tested into a tougher math option for 9-10th grades, took something called "advanced topics in physics and chem" instead of AP Bio.</p>
<p>Of course, the adcoms shouldn't discriminate against kids whose hs offers fewer or no APs, but doesn't it seem unfair that some kids are expected to take way more APs to be in the running, just because their hs offers more? I'm not complaining for my kid--the system worked for him, but it seems tough on, for instance, doubleplay's son.</p>
<p>OT: I am interested in doubleplay's use of the word "gut". It looks like she uses it to mean "especially demanding, difficult, to the point where it gets physical" as if it were short for "gut-wrenching". </p>
<p>When I was in college (and after), we talked about "gut" classes, too, but it had precisely the opposite meaning. A "gut" was a class that was nondemanding and relatively easy to do well in -- Introduction To Basket-Weaving, Rocks For Jocks, etc. I don't know what the derivation of that usage is, or how widespread it is or was. I had never heard it before college, but it was an established part of the lingo there.</p>
<p>What do the rest of you know? Have you used the phrase "gut class"? If you do, does it mean gut-wrenching, or gutted of all difficult content?</p>
<p>JHS--I thought the same thing; for us, a gut course was one that you took to inflate your GPA or mitigate an otherwise tough schedule. Maybe different areas use the word differently.</p>
<p>Same here - "guts" were the easy classes.</p>
<p>In the usage I have heard, "gut" course means an easy course. The more usual term in this region of the country for that kind of course is "Mickey Mouse course." </p>
<p>One reason I had my son take AP tests this year, as a freshman, was to get a calibration of how hard his courses are.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
Did your son take a math class through a local college? On another note, I wrote to you a few months ago, for some math advice on homeschooling my 8-year old. Thanks for the feedback. We took your advice on the math curriculum and it is working out well.</p>
<p>Yes, my son's recent math courses have been through a special program for advanced high school students at our state university. He will also take an EPGY distance learning course in mathematical logic as an elective this coming school year.</p>
<p>Either the people I've heard using the term "gut" were using it incorrectly as well, or my blondeness is coming through and I've misunderstood completely all these years! </p>
<p>(And I always wondered how "The Meat We Eat" could have been so difficult! ;))</p>
<p>The "most difficult" APs at our hs were: Calc, Physics, Bio, Chem. Hands down. They also had a 99% "5" rate. (No wonder...you spend 2 hours a night studying for one class, you're going to learn something!)</p>
<p>OTOH, AP Lang/Comp was a joke- NO homework or studying (I am not exaggerating- I never saw ONE hw assignment. According to son, everything was done "in class"). Younger son took MacroEcon and Govt and there was, maybe, an hour of hw per WEEK. Students <em>avoided</em> harder sciences while bumping up their AP status by taking Stat instead of Calc, Enviromental Science, and Psychology. Music students took AP Music, which should be hard but isn't. We have quite a few bilingual students who take AP Spanish. It wasn't uncommon for students to graduate with 7 or 8 APs, while having taken none of the really difficult classes. On the other hand, you can have busted your behind for two years and only have 4 or 5 AP classes.</p>
<p>It really torked me about the GC not checking the Rigorous box. I knew the amount of time involved in the classes my son took vs. the others, but it's strictly a numbers game. To pour salt in the wound, my son took an Honors Physics class which was actually AP Physics B, but not designated as so (the AP test was given to the kids as the final), then took Physics C his senior year, so in essence he got one AP for the price of two. And the school doesn't want to make itself look bad by publishing the scores. According to them "all our APs are equally rigorous" (LOL)</p>
<p>This shows how schools can differ a lot. My son's year-long AP Gov course was extremely demanding, and involved considerable reading and at least one research paper per week. If he was staying up until 3 am, it was usually AP Gov. (Not that Physics C and Calc BC were easy, either, but they weren't that much harder than Gov.) The teacher was extremely parsimonious with grades, and had the practice of writing personal notes of congratulation each quarter to the parents of any student who got a grade of 90 or above (never more than 3 or 4 out of a class of 30). A great, exciting, passionate teacher, though, and relatively young at a school where most of the faculty has earned a place through seniority, so much in demand by students notwithstanding the difficulty of the course.</p>
<p>AP English Lit was much less time-consuming, assuming you can read fast, although it did have regular writing assignments, and one 15-20 page term paper that required outside library research.</p>
<p>S never cracked a book for any of his AP's (took 7) except Calc. If there was homework, he did not do it at home and he worked most days after sch. until 10:00 at night.
The others he took were Eng. lang./comp.,USH, Bio., Environ. Sci., Psyc., Stats. Made A and B's in the classes. Scored two 3's, three 4's and two 5's on the exams,no studying. I guess he was one of those who avoided the harder AP's but the credit for those "easy " ones sure has helped him out in college. All his AP teachers were good.</p>
<p>At son's hs, AP Macro and AP Govt are semester courses. He hardly lifted a finger for either of those, made A PLUSes, and 3's on each exam! The teacher was apparently not highly regarded and will be gone next year. Son claimed he learned (and did) "absolutely nothing" and used logic, personal knowledge, and guesswork on the AP exams. </p>
<p>Younger son did crack a book for AP Calc and AP Bio, the latter being a killer (had to WORK his behind off to get a B first semester). Got 5s on those. AP Lite (I mean Lit) and AP Lang/Comp he didn't do anything for either, except speedread through the lit stuff (if that) and got 4s.</p>
<p>AP Physics required at least 2 hours a night- another "lucky to get a B" class with everyone in the course scoring 5s. APUSH is a pretty challenging course at our school as well, more time consuming than the AP English classes, less consuming than the harder AP sciences.</p>