<p>Everyone has those days when AP classes just gets to you. AP classes aren't easy, after all. Most of the time it feels a lot better to let it out. So I've made a thread for that purpose. Enjoy! </p>
<p>I'll get us started: so today, in AP chem, we had our thermochemistry test. The test itself wasn't hard, but it was really really long. After the hour, I still had 4 problems I didn't do. Based our our teacher's stupid scale (she told us this after the test), each one of those problems was worth 5 points! That means that the maximum score I can get is an 80%... >:(</p>
<p>I had A LOT of gripes with several of my AP classes in high school. Like AP Literature. It was every bit as bad and insipid as almost every other English class I had; pick a book from the canon, force us to read it in our own time or in class, do a few stupid activities tangentially related to the subject matter (like drawing pilgrims or bringing medieval food for the Canterbury Tales...), do a test to check that you read the selected book, practice for the AP every once in a while with a Timed Writing or a practice exam... WHAT WAS THE POINT?! At least those last 2 were useful, but what is the freaking point of doing the rest?! WHAT DOES IT TEACH!?!?!?!?! ARGHHH!!!!</p>
<p>And the discussions. Oh God the discussions. "Do you think event X was realistic?" "What do you think of character Y? Is she somebody you would like to have as a friend?" My God, I wanted to hang myself! Who cares if they are realistic or if we like the characters, they are important because they are vehicles for portraying the author's philosophies and themes and...</p>
<p>...okay, I need to calm down. Funny thing is, the teacher in question asked us to write her a letter at the end of the year evaluating the class. I told her EXACTLY what I thought of her class. I even led it on nicely, starting the letter saying that English classes in general tended to fall into the mold described above, and that it took a truly extraordinary class to break from it... and then I wrote that I was sorry to say her class was no such extraordinary class and to list all that I thought was wrong with it. The next day (the last day I ever saw that teacher, since it was the end of the year) she took me outside and she told me I had written her the nastiest letter she had ever read, and that she didn't know I had it in me to be that cruel to someone, and that she put a lot of work into her class and that she hoped someday somebody would rip my work to shreds so I would be able to feel what she felt. It was AWESOME.</p>
<p>Then there was AP Human Geography. The teacher's "lectures" consisted of her talking about her time in Israel and when she was young and lived in South Miami or some other stuff like that... and then we had a lot of worthless assignments in that class, too. To watch the news because we would be quizzed on them, to draw a map of our neighborhood... our "final exam" was picking a country and making a power point presentation including famous people from that country, the geography of that country, etc... my God, is THAT a college level class?</p>
<p>Ugh... I swear, the only reasons I kept showing to school last year were for AP Macro, AP U.S. Gov, and AP Calc AB. And because I needed to graduate, too, but still.</p>
<p>Some of my AP classes are just useless. For AP Comp, there is SO MUCH busy workkkkk!!!! We turn in stuff in binders, each binder check is worth like 700 points!!! And she takes points off for the slightest mistakes! The stuff is so easy, we've read 2 easy books and had quizzes on them, that's all! We aren't even preparing for the exam yet, its a waste of my time, so easy, yet such a waste of time. APUSH, stupid class where teacher gives quizzes every chapter. I don't do work for either class yet still have an A- in both. AP Bio, easiest class ever...teacher doesn't know nething at all, we're still at Photosynthesis right now..Chapter 10 out of 50..its already 2/3 a semester..</p>
<p>My AP Lit teacher announced today that our final exam will consist of two timed essays and absolutely nothing of relevance to what we've done for the semester. This wouldn't be that bad if his grading scale for the essays wasn't insane. He used to be one of the teachers that College Board has grade the exams so he knows what he's doing when he assigns the 1-9 value to them, but way he correlates them to a % is just unfair. A 9 (he said if he gave out more than 5 9s per 1000 essays they would have fired him) is a 96%; if you write the greatest essay the world has ever seen you don't get an A+. A 6, which is what I got on our last practice essay is worth 82%. Out of the two sections, he photocopied my 6 as an example of what a good essay was, yet it still translated to a very low B. To make matters worse, each timed essay is worth 100 points, half of what our 15 page analysis of the Odyssey was worth!</p>
<p>My AP English Language and Composition (11th grade) teacher was the worst possible AP teacher in our school. New York State requires AP students to take their Regents (State Finals) for English in January instead of June, so for 6 weeks of wasted time before January in an AP class we did basic regents prep. If you do not live in New York State, the premise is that you read a passage and regurgitate information or write about a book. The irony? people who did well on the regents did not necessarily do well on the AP exam and vica versa.
Sure in language we did little things like Martin Luter King's speech about Birmingham, but we never analyzed the piece besides going on about pathos, ethos and logos. His tests were also bad, they didn't test analytical skills like for Macbeth they asked "what is the name of Macbeth's castle?" HOW THE HELL IS THAT ANALYTICAL? Everything we did in that class was the bare minimum of a regulars english class. He taught both APs and regulars the same. </p>
<p>His AP prep before the test was horrible, he would assign us an essay topic, we'd go home write about it. Compare it to our friends, he'd show us what a 9, an 8, a 7 looked like and send us home to do another. Rinse and Repeat for an entire month. Almost no MC prep at all, he gave us two practice tests which were not even full tests.</p>
<p>I now have a very competent and smart English Literature teacher, but it's hard transferring from my BS Language teacher to him. My friend said who took AP English for the first time said his writing nor his english improved at all, even compared to in a regulars class, he called him one of the worst teachers in the school.</p>
<p>When we cover a chapter, we cover what's in the book and the AP test in the first day or so. Then we move off on random other things that are not in our textbooks. 0_o We've had over 80 assignments thus far and they are almost all designed to teach you something instead of reinforcing something you already know. Imagine being graded on every question every asked in class or every thought you ever had in class.</p>
<p>AP Calculus BC</p>
<p>I finally realized my instructor was getting many of our questions from the past AP exams FRQ that are very hard for students to get access to. (He's actually been an AP graded in BC calculus)
These are graded rather evilly, and if you make 1 mistake (Which might get you a 7/9 or so on the test) you get an 80 or worse.</p>
<p>We don't need to do that much work in AP Eng Lit. It's a waste of my time to write a summary and answer questions for every chapter. I really don't think I've learned anything new at all, except for now knowing about a few more books.</p>
<p>^ kfowler exact same thing here. The final exam in my AP Lit class is going to be 2 AP essays. We'll have 80 minutes to do them and it has nothing to do with what we've done this semester.</p>
<p>And Jaimeastorga2000 you basically described precisely how I feel about AP Lit. The discussions...omg...I don't care about character X/Y and the analysis of him. Sometimes I just sit back and think, man I don't think whoever wrote this crap intended for us to analyze everything like this. Who cares anyway? They're fictional characters in a story. I just hate analyzing literature and characters in general. AP Lit takes all the fun out of reading and writing. :(</p>
<p>AP Chem...geez hardest class I've ever taken, basically sux. I've never felt this lost in a class before</p>
<p>I love Calc BC and Stats though...great classes.</p>
<p>I LOVE my AP Lit class... I'm a math person, but my teacher is sooooo amazing!! My IB Chem class is stressing me out tho.... 78 on orgo test... ***? Also, AP Computer Science A is SOOOOOOOO much harder than I expected. Last year, Computer Science was easy....</p>
<p>last year one of the questions on our Gatsby test read, " What color is Gatsby's car?" What's worse was that we found the same question on sparknotes. </p>
<p>We had our thermo test two weeks ago. We got a retake and a curve.</p>
<p>Although I have no rants about any AP classes I simply must say jaimeastorga has perfectly summed up how I have felt in just about every English class I've ever taken. Quite remarkable indeed.</p>