I don't blame her for not wanting to read newspapers. I try to not pay attention to the news as much as possible either - oftentimes it's just too overdramatic, or going for the shock value, so on.
I never liked the idea of "summer assignments" either. At my college, your commitment to a class is strictly 15 weeks + finals. You walk in monday, the first day of the semester, classes end in precisely 15 weeks (by policy NO assignments allowed past the final day of classes, except for final exam or final project/paper)
I really see no reason why an AP course (which is often a college semester stretched out to 9 months of HS) needs to go all the way to 12 months. Someone please enlighten me if I'm misguided?
(Off topic rant finished
)