<p>To be fair, I’m don’t think that your analogy is appropriate here, because the reading and writing you do in elementary school is not the same as in the future. I think a more appropriate analogy would be “arithmetic is commonly taught in elementary school, and is therefore considered prior knowledge” and is not necessary for an algebra II class (you can use calculators). Also, I’m a chemistry major in college atm and I certainly do not know some of these “key concepts and knowledge” by heart.</p>
<p>However I am concerned whether cutting the amount of content covered would lead to less colleges accepting AP Chemistry credit.</p>
<p>@aldfig That’s a good point about the colleges, if you take out fundamentals, although colleges will still be happy to see you took the AP Chemistry class, but it won’t do much if you want need to take chemistry types of classes later because they need to make sure you actually no the material.
How can you get rid of colligative properties, solubility rules, phase diagrams, before you know it, you won’t need to know what an atom is. Same thing’s happening to AP Biology.</p>
<p>I think that 99% of us can agree that the FRQ was a low shot.</p>
<p>Ok? Ok. I got solid 5’s on BOTH practice exams we took in class (released exams from 2002 & 2008. We went the whole nine yards–three hours after school, given no more than the allotted time for both sections, etc.), and now I’m hoping for a 4. For some reason, I had more of an issue pacing myself on both the MC and FRQ, and had to rush through some questions.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed for a generous curve…but I have Calc AB tomorrow, so I’m going to focus on getting a 5 on that.</p>
<p>While I’m not sure I agree with their exclusion of Lewis acids, colligative properties (maybe), or phase diagrams, I think that CB is taking a step in the right direction. They’re eliminating the topics that tend to cause rote memorization for those studying.</p>
<p>That was just a difficult exam. I wish I felt more confident coming out of the exam room. It was one of those tests where you don’t know if you’re right or wrong but you do as you were taught so i’m not sure what exactly happened -_-. The last 10 years’ FRQ were so much easier, especially part A. Part B this year wasn’t terrible and the reactions weren’t bad, but the calculations killed me.</p>
Solubility rules. I know they exist, but if I ever need them I can just look in a textbook. Memorizing them doesn’t improve understanding of chemistry in any way. If you’re going to do a lab where a precipitate might form you’re going to look up the rules for the prelab anyway.</p>
<p>Its a little table to memorize that comes up every single day, like memorizing the names to polyatomic ions, you just know them. I don’t think what they’re doing with biology is good, but at least I can justify why they’re doing it. I can’t justify this.</p>
<p>Regarding the removal of memorized material, I feel that the College Board is doing the right thing. With Google and Wikipedia, knowing all of the solubility rules is becoming completely useless. It’s far more important to be able to apply this knowledge in real world situations.</p>
<p>Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re a chem major and you don’t know those rules if not by rote memorization, then just by experience. You must have taken at least a year of chemistry by now considering the end of a school year is coming up, and if the class has been taught the way it should (with plenty of labs and practice), those rules should be fairly second nature. I haven’t sat down to memorize them, but after a year of AP Chem, I can tell you, after looking at a solubility rules sheet many times and by experience, if a compound is soluble or not.</p>
<p>It’s the same thing with say integrals of trig functions. It’s a part of the subject matter to just know some things lol.</p>
<p>“Yes, the most frequently administered FRQs from Monday’s AP Exams will be posted at about 4 pm Eastern Time today.”</p>
<p>Can’t wait, although I don’t know if the answers will be posted as well. This proves though that there are different forms, and some people will never be able to see the FRQs, or the answers to them, that they had.</p>
<p>^That happened to me last year on physics. The teachers get a copy of this form to give in class, though, so my teacher showed me the answers to my FRQ’s at the beginning of the year; also, answers are not posted until like August</p>