<p>after reading this thread i realized i took my teachers for granted. i have really well qualified teachers even though they sometimes **** me off for being too difficult at times lol.</p>
<p>yeah.. i love 90% of my teachers.. my government teacher is AMAZING; had her for psych last year. i would feel guilty if i didnt get at least a 4 on the ap gov test beacuse she's so brilliant...haha. we keep getting flooded with new staff and most of them are underqualified or ill suited for the position. example.. we've had a new ELS/gifted teacher every year for the past for years. My gifted teacher should be helping me with college just as much as the guidance office, but the most she's done is had me take a test to figure out how i learn. woohoo?</p>
<p>I had a terrible chem teacher that hated my guts, yet somehow I got a 4...</p>
<p>Eh I can't motivate myself for crap when it comes to tests. I go into every single one with a doom and glood attitude. So far the only lights I've seen at the end of any tunnels are in the area of bio; on the subject test and AP. Good thing I'm gonna major in biology and not history :]</p>
<p>err...you know it isnt impossible to self study history or calc. in fact, i believe both, especially calc, have pretty helpful curves. i dont think you should place all the blame on your teachers.
no offense, but this has grade inflation written all over it</p>
<p>I had an amazing APUSH teacher, so good that I didn't use a prep book and studied minimally outside of class and I got a 5</p>
<p>AP Chem on the other hand...is a different story. Everyone before my class got 1s and 1 kid got a 2......Teacher is not that motivated to prep us...so I tried to do as much as I could outside of class (though I have to admit I could have done a lot more), and I ended up with a 3, which I am proud of, even though it won't get me college credit in a lot of places...If your class is not prepping you, its up to you to take on the challenge, practically everyone in my chem class gave up after the first month (except for a select few), and those are the few that passed...</p>
<p>From what I hear, however, AP scores aren't as important as other things in your transcript (GPA, SAT, Extracurriculars, Initiative, Volunteering, etc.), so don't fret, if they see that you did well on some APs and bombed one or 2, they can probably tell that you had a bad teacher but that you are still a good student (because of your grades, GPA, etc.), so, if I where you, I wouldn't worry about it much</p>
<p>I know you don't mean to be offensive.. and I didn't take it offensively. But calc and history aren't like.. my only two good classes. I'm 5th in my class with a 4.0 unweighted GPA. I'm not like a fly by average kid... I don't want to sound like I'm that conceited but.. idk. People who know me expected 5's. I was riding more on my so-called abilities than my teachers. I studied my ass off for history too. The essays killed me. I actually used Pocahontas, yes the disney movie, as my reference for one section. I was clueless... I deserved a 0 (yes I know it's impossible) if they were to base it just on my essays.</p>
<p>In the future, I STRONGLY suggest you to get prep books for AP exams and DEFINITELY practice with the released MC questions and the FRQ available online.</p>
<p>thats the thing, yatta is right....</p>
<p>My APUSH teacher FORCED us to do like 15 practice AP multiple choice questions and we did free essays and dbqs every week, very intensive class</p>
<p>In Chem; however, we did 2 practice tests...he didn't go over them either...But, here's where you need to motivate yourself and do the practice tests and prep yourself!!</p>
<p>Yeah.. money is a big issue. My family could barely afford the exam fees let alone the prep books. The only ones I own are ACT/SAT and that was a christmas gift. I know there are a TON of other things I could've done other than get the books, and lesson learned, but not having the 20 dollars to buy the book kind of puts a damper on it..</p>
<p>yeah i hate how you have to pay to take an exam....but thats another story...
you can probably get prep books cheap online, and theres some free tests released online too, use whatever resources you have</p>
<p>Quick question.
Since I'll be a senior, the only AP tests I can list on my apps are the three I currently have. Do you think that the fact that a school won't even be able to look at my next round of AP scores (assuming I do bad :/) and automatically think "grade inflation" will help? They'll only see the classes I took... right? Ughhh I'm confused.</p>
<p>They would have no basis for judgment, oli, so how could they assume anything? Just get those good grades. The AP tests that you will take in May of your senior year cannot and will not affect your admission.</p>
<p>Another Quick Question:</p>
<p>Do people retake APs? How common is it? Will retaking an AP test for a better score affect you in a selective college's admissions process?</p>
<p>Thanks for replying. In my mind I was telling myself that but I guess I needed to see it in writing and from someone else. </p>
<p>I've never heard of people retaking them until I saw some threads on this site very recently... God, why would anyone want to. I would rather have a 1 than sit through another round of torture.</p>
<p>Well I hope that I gave sound advice :)</p>
<p>i've read about half of the posts so far & agree with stephenn-you should work on your own.</p>
<p>my school touts itself as the "best" or whatnot, but it basically is crud & i do great in class w/o any work. My guidance counselor told me that "it is literally impossible to score over 650" on the SAT IIs. They also told me I was a "lock for harvard" and "any ivy". Do I believe them? No. Also, my history teacher taught the wrong stuff and I had to learn that for class, and then relearn the right stuff. I got 800 and 5 on the AP exam...so don't let your teacher make or break you.</p>
<p>You can get prep books from the library...and just keep renewing. so that's not really an excuse, either. it's also a COMPLETE waste of $84 if you aren't going to study at all and your teachers are bad-you lost a potential source for college credit</p>
<p>Also, just as a note, I think a CC might not be the worst place for you. I'm NOT saying this as "oh your scores are terrible", but I think your instruction in HS has probably been terrible and you might want to catch up before you go top a top 10 school in the nation. One of my good friends with similar scores and issues (high grade inflation & low AP scores) is going there, and I honestly cannot think of a better place. When she goes to a better school, she'll be more likely to thrive, and I don't see the problem with that.</p>
<p>I don't mean to be rude; really really really don't... But I took the CC comment as an insult. This low AP score is not the tell all for my life. I know it's bad. I know I've spent 99% of this post ragging on my teachers poor skills, but a CC is NOT the place for me. I know that everyone here is like woo grade inflation! everyone gather round and tell this girl how her grades should really be c's! No. That isn't me. At all. I'm really trying hard not to take this personally, but I know my stuff. I didn't try on those AP's and I know it. I laughed walking out of the Calc exam. I spent this whole post blaming it on my teacher instead of myself because, hell, that's easier. I took it all as a joke and now I'm paying the price... I got a 4 on my AP BIO, a 710 on the subject test. I got a 32 on the ACT. The lowest grade I got this entire year, unweighted mind you, was a 96. It's not grade inflation... it's not. I can't help it that my school isn't known for being great and that the only AP test I studied for was bio... but my God I hope that doesn't equal CC. Damnit I know for a fact that I'm intelligent. For a fact. Tell me I'm conceited go ahead... I deserve more than a CC. I'm sorry for being mean... but like... I'm freaking out here. Like mentally unstable freaking out. No one in my entire universe has ever told me that I should go to a CC and catch up..... idk what to do..... :'[ If this is how you, and probably others, perceive me is that how a college will perceive me? Anyone else care to reply?!?! :/</p>
<p>Man, you need to take a chill pill.</p>
<p>freakin tell me about it... god. college is gonna kill me before I even get there.</p>
<p>With all due respect, any school that gives more than 100% with weighting and doesn't get you at least a 4 on the exam, studying on your own or not, is inflating grades.</p>
<p>As a calculus teacher, I can tell you that earning a 2 on the exam is more than a matter of "not studying". It also means that you didn't really know your stuff as well as you thought you did. A basic knowledge of only the derivative and integration rules would probably get you a 3 most years.</p>
<p>You claim in your posts that you "know [your] stuff". But if you really truly knew your stuff, you would demonstrate it. You didn't demonstrate it. Own up to that.</p>
<p>I've seen way too many students, when they start to fall short of expectations, whether it's their own expectations or someone else's, start to blame other factors when they don't do as well as they had hoped. And the most common of these is the willingness to blame lack of studying. "Oh, I would have done better if I had prepared..." or "I would have done better if I had tried." But in the vast majority of these cases, in my experience, these students don't do better when they "try" or "prepare". And it's not because they don't want to do better, it's because at that particular moment, they can't do better. They don't understand things as well as they think they do, and they don't have a good coping mechanism. So "I didn't try..."</p>
<p>There comes a time in everybody's life where they have to redefine for themselves what it means to work hard and they have to redefine for themselves what it means to give it your all. And given the grades at your particular school, your school really isn't going to help you in this endeavor.</p>
<p>But I encourage you to undertake the endeavor, anyway, or your collegiate experience will likely prove to be a rude, rude awakening.</p>