<p>I just received my AP score report, but I don't see my calc score from last year. Is it normal? Should I worry about it if I am pretty confident to do well on the placement test?</p>
<p>Or, for example, if I got a five on a certain subject, but flunk the placement test, which one counts?</p>
<p>You don’t “flunk” a placement test. My second-hand understanding of the UChicago placement tests is that they are just that. They don’t attempt to assess comprehensively what you know. They are short, with a pretty limited number of questions. Some of the questions will seem easy, because you know that level, and some impossibly hard because you don’t know that level at all, and a few that may seem difficult but doable. For those, it doesn’t really matter whether you get them right or not.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, the placement tests don’t exist to embarrass you, or show who is better than anyone else, or to hold you back. They help you and your advisor figure out where the best place to start in a particular subject matter is. If there are choices – and there often are – you will be given a chance to make the ultimate decision. If the placement test shows that you don’t have full command of a particular area, you should really think twice about taking a course that requires that you be in command of that area.</p>
<p>Twenty years from now, or even three years from now, no one is going to care whether you started math at 131, 161, 199, or 207. All of them are perfectly good places to start, and you can get anywhere you want to go starting from any of them. No one wants you to waste your time, but no one – not even you – wants you to be in over your head and to have you crash and burn, maybe wrecking all of your other courses, too.</p>
<p>Thanks, so I take it as the placement test holds more weight than the AP score?</p>
<p>Weight for what? </p>
<p>In languages, if what you want is credit rather than placement, they have equal weight, in the sense that if you get a 4 or 5 on the AP, that’s good enough, and if you perform at the same level on the placement test, that’s good enough, too. As far as placement is concerned, if the AP and placement test results differ, it’s a discussion, not an automatic result. I don’t think you have to take the placement test if you don’t want to, and place solely based on your AP score, but why would you do that?</p>
<p>In bio, I think, there’s a special version of introductory bio for people who got 5s on the AP. Maybe you can place into that with a placement test, maybe not. In other hard sciences, a decent AP score will let you decide whether to take an honors section, but so will a decent placement test. </p>
<p>In math, the AP is pretty irrelevant – if you are going to take math, they will want you to take the placement test. But fundamentally people who got 5s on the BC AP (but do not have more advanced math) and people who got 3s on the AB AP are offered the same courses.</p>
<p>APs outside of language, math, and science are completely irrelevant.</p>
<p>Ah ha now I have a much better understanding of the AP and placement test thing. Thank you sooo much for your time JHS</p>
<p>Ermm, the placement tests that matter are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Language (If you don’t have AP credit (3 or higher, I believe), you can test out of the language recruitment. This is also necessary if you want to continue on with a language you have studied in the past. You can test into 2nd and 3rd year this way.)</p></li>
<li><p>Math (Most get placed into Calc either the 130’s 150’s or 160’s. They are all very different courses. 130’s and 150’s will teach you more or less the same material but 130’s is more work. You can also test into 199 and analysis classes which is not possible to do with AP scores. A 5 on BC Calc will allow you take IBL Calculus if you want to do that…Oh, and if I recall correctly, a 4/5 on AB Calc or a 3/4/5 on BC will place you out of the core requirement for math if you want that…)</p></li>
<li><p>P.E. Test (You can test out of one, two or all three P.E. classes. There is also a swimming thing which you can pass if you know how to float and flail your arms.)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You will get to choose which score to take (AP vs. placement).</p>
<p>The chemistry one sort of matters, maybe? I don’t really know all that much about that one. The biology one is pointless. Take it, but don’t worry about it at all. I am not really sure what they do with it anymore. They used to suggest certain sections of Core Bio to take depending on how you did, but they don’t do this anymore…If you are interested in the AP 5 sequence for Bio, you HAVE to have a 5 on AP Bio. They don’t really allow exceptions to this…</p>
<p>There are also a few random ones you can take if you want. For instance, Organic Chemistry and Honors Physics…rarely people take these and even less do well enough on them to get credit for courses…</p>
<p>thanks, but what’s tested for the P.E. placement? I am in good shape but is not blessed with speed of any kind</p>
<p>oh NVM in our info pack it says muscular fitness and cardiovascular assessment</p>