<p>At my school, some teachers give practice ap exams from previous years as their final, except with no curve at all.</p>
<p>I have my biology final tomorrow.</p>
<p>Is my school just very brutal, or is this a regular occurrence? </p>
<p>Bio final = 30% of grade, keep in mind a 60% is a 5 ._.</p>
<p>Why do you think the grades should be curved?</p>
<p>Lots of instructors don’t use curves when they grade. Many of us use flat-out percentages. Don’t stress yourself about this.</p>
<p>This happened to me, and it’s terrible. In my AP Comparative Politics class, the only thing the teacher did was put a built-in 5 pt curve (there were 5 extra questions, and he wouldn’t do the math to correct for it). We don’t have time for the full thing, so he trimmed some free response.</p>
<p>Anyways, AP exams should be curved. Think about chem; a 5 on AP Chem is ~55-60% This means that getting a 5, equivalent to knowing 2 semesters of college general chemistry while in high school, is failing. No way a teacher should chastise students for doing well (a 5 is freaking amazing)! My chem teacher also gave us an AP test, but he was nice and curved it based on natural brakes (he tallied up everyones raw score, then assigned certain intervals to letter grades).</p>
<p>Yes, it should be curved. we have teachers that do this with their tests during the year to prepare you for the ap exam. Most of them curve as one has little chance of doing well. Think of it this way, you need to get about 1/2 correct to pass the ap exam. If there is no curve and you get 1/2 correct which would get you a 3 on the exam, then you are flucking the school exam. Why would that be a fair way to grade?</p>
<p>Happymom: It should be curved because AP exams are designed so that a 60% is considered a 5 (an A equivalent). It is not a test designed for students to earn 90% or 100%. About a 40% is considered passing and getting credit.</p>
<p>raiderade, thanks for that information.</p>
<p>But whether or not a teacher curves an exam used for classroom purposes is an entirely different thing. The instructor in question may think that this is a useful way to encourage the students to actually put forth maximum effort in an exam-like environment. If the teacher doesn’t use any one particular exam, preferring to select questions from several, the scoring system would need to be revised. Not to mention that the teacher may not have access to the complete scoring rubrics for essays/problems/short answers etc. The teacher may give more lee-way on those than the AP exam scorers would. In other words, the students should ask the teacher what his/her reasoning is for this scoring system. That way even though the students don’t like it, they will know that the teacher does indeed have a formal reason for his/her decision.</p>
<p>If the teacher does use a full AP exam, and does score it using the AP’s scoring rubrics for essays/problems/short answers, then any students who want a guesstimate for their AP score can recalculate for that based on their classroom exam results.</p>
<p>I guess I just think it’s totally unreasonable to expect students to be able to get 90+% on an exam designed for students to get around a 50% (where that is considered successful). If the teacher doesn’t curve, I would wonder his/her motives and definitely ask.</p>
<p>My teacher uses AP questions the entire year for every test and final exam. None are curved. Some parents complained to the principal, but he got defensive about it, so we still have to work extra-hard.</p>
<p>Most of my teachers use AP questions from past years to create uncurved chapter tests and final exams, so I doubt it’s a rare thing, but I definitely agree with you that it’s tough. The good thing is, by studying for your final, you’ll also be studying for the real AP exam and you’ll probably be really well prepared.</p>
<p>In AP World, our final was half the AP released exam (with a very small curve, like 5 points) and the second half was a time period-based group skit, which bumped up people’s final grades to be equivalent to what they had been getting all year. In psych, our final is the AP released exam (2004)… She offered 10 points to whomever took it before the AP exam on their own time… I got a 96!!! (meaning my final exam grade is a 106! :D)</p>
<p>ok, well i managed a 88% on the MC, and she gave everyone below a 60% on the frq’s</p>