<p>I still have to laugh at this…</p>
<p>IB!!!</p>
<p>^I’ll be laughing as you do EE, CAS, TOK, and annotate all of To Kill a Mockingbird in eighteen different highlighter colors over the weekend. The joys of an IB education…</p>
<p>Then again, both systems have their pros and cons.</p>
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And I still really don’t see why you’re laughing. There’s not really a problem with the status quo from a student’s point of view. The Bio exam covers a ridiculous amount of material, but it also has a ridiculously generous curve. Teachers who think that their students need to memorize Campbell are idiots.</p>
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<p>I think MC questions work the best for listening questions (I took the AP French test last May). If the long dialogues were changed to a FR question, the subjectiveness in the grading would be way too hard to overcome, IMO. MC questions pertaining to whatever the exchange is does a phenomenal job of testing listening comprehension.</p>
<p>And AP Music Theory…God, doing hand-written responses for the listening MC questions would be a pain in the ass.</p>
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<p>True, although for some prompts, it would be quite difficult to do so, i.e.: “The boy and the girl talked about going to the movies” if the prompt is about… a boy and a girl talking about going to the movies, haha. But I do see your point.</p>
<p>I’m glad I’m going to be in college by then.</p>
<p>^^But that’s such a superficial answer. What MC questions do is let testers cover both the superficial aspect (boy+girl go to movies) and then get into more comprehensive questioning too (e.g. why did boy+girl go to movies? did they see anyone there? did they have fun?).</p>
<p>I’ll be in college, but I personally like the new ideas that will be implemented. The opportunity to design one’s own labs sounds very creative. I also like how the AP Biology curriculum will be toned down a bit; I know from others’ experiences that the amount of information covered in that class is exhausting and mind-blowing.</p>
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<p>I honestly don’t remember too much about the AP French test, even though it’s been less than a year. What’s ironic is that all of us are debating something that won’t affect anyone on this thread… yet the current freshmen and sophomores aren’t even thinking about APs right now (for the most part).</p>
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<p>I’m in a combined AP/IB Biology class, and we have to write our own labs for IB; we had to do it for IB Chem also. Definitely too difficult to be beneficial (then again, science isn’t my forte).</p>
<p>Didn’t AP Euro start out as just nine essays no MP and was soon considered to be an upper level college class and much more difficult than a freshman intro class? Thats why they added the MP and made the essays much friendlier. Can’t find the article I got it from. But It seems like the tests themselves are going to be just as difficult just differently focused.</p>
<p>Maybe the current system isn’t broken, just its execution.</p>
<p>That would be an absolute travesty if they limited the number of AP’s a person can take to prevent less capable people from overwhelming themselves. The interests of the irresponsible should NEVER outweigh the interests of the responsible.</p>
<p>The biology curriculum is insane. If it is shortened so that we got to think instead of memorize people like myself that dislike memorizing could enjoy the subject more. (I care more about the subject then the AP) It’s a good thing that CB is making changes. Limiting the number of AP’s a student can take will not be productive as some people are capable of much more than others want to believe.</p>
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You don’t need to memorize that much for AP Bio. Fact. If you have a solid understanding of the most important biological processes, only a very small amount of terminology is necessary.</p>
<p>IB Chem, we have the occasional design labs. Which are fun.</p>
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<p>CAS is like the easiest **** ever. I’m more than halfway over for my CAS requirement. I’ll have anywhere between 200-300 CAS hours.</p>
<p>EE… If I don’t procrastinate, I’ll be good. TKAM, freshman year. We’re done with it.</p>
<p>TOK… I can do it. Not in one weekend.</p>
<p>It seems as if AP recognizes it needs to change.</p>
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This is very true, but at least it’s keeping us updated with the latest in education, as soon we’ll be the people influencing these policies.</p>
<p>What’d you get on the exam, incidentally?</p>
<p>I think it’s silly that CB is concerned that the median scores are dropping…more schools encourage students to take APs these days, so the scores should be going down. Plus, I think a lot of APs are to easy anyway.</p>
<p>MIT: My IB experience wasn’t as lenient… to say the least. People needed ‘mental health days’ all the time, haha.</p>
<p>Matt: I got a 5. I’m a native speaker, though.</p>
<p>Ah, same here. Just not with the native speaker bit, lol.</p>