dsultemeier

My son was trying to decide whether to take the World History AP class next year so I "surveyed" some of my PTA friends about their childrens' experiences. Of the six moms I talked to three said their kids were doing poorly in the class this year and probably wouldn't sit for the AP test, one child got an A in the class a few years ago but a 1 on the test, 1 child now in college regretted not taking the exam since now he has to take a much harder world history class in college, and the other mom said her daughter did fine in the class and on the exam (she didn't tell me exact numbers). The thread running through the stories of children doing poorly was that they didn't like to read. My older daughter, a junior, attends a different all-girls school and she is one of only 4 girls in the entire school who are taking the BC Calculus exam. She is taking her first AP tests this May so I'm not sure how she will do. Also, I'm not sure on the ins and outs of this but the seniors in my daugher's calculus class said what's the point of taking the AP exam since I'll already have my college acceptances before the test date. Back on the kids taking the class but not the exam, I was under the impression that the scores aren't sent to colleges so can you just report good scores? If so it seems like they don't have anything to lose taking the AP exam. Sorry for all the questions but when I was in high school we didn't do AP or SAT II's for that matter. But that was back in the disco era.

obsessed mom

No one has mentioned that if a student excells on the AP exams, he/she is recognized for their merit. Depending upon the number of exams taken and the scores received, a student can be an AP Scholar, AP Scholar with Honor, AP Scholar with Distinction, and so forth. This can be a boon to a college applicaton that asks for Awards and/or Honors.

InquilineKea

AP CHINESE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Examinees by Race and Ethnicity, 2007

jcsmooth

Males dominate math and science, females dominate humanities, who would have guessed...

Keshira

Major congratulations to that 10% taking the test without being native speakers! Mandarin is super hard to learn for English speakers compared to other European languages... ><
But I think taking the AP Chinese test still involves tons of work for a Chinese person. In other languages if you can speak and spell you're okay; in Chinese you memorize every single character... and after the first couple hundred they get really complicated. Most of the Chinese kids I know are illiterate. In Chinese, I mean.

dsultemeier

There was an article in our local newspaper about this report yesterday saying that our state is below average in test takers but that the high fee limits the numbers of students participating. My D's private school charged us $270 for 3 AP classes this year. Ouch!

1down, 1 to go

Just curious, our high school requires you to take the AP exam if you take the course. Curious how many other high schools have that requirement?

1down, 1 to go

And yes parents pay the fees too at our school.

hudsonvalley51

To be more precise, males dominate (in terms of percentage of those taking AP exams) in physics, computer science and math. Females comprise the majority of AP test takers in the life sciences. No surprise there either.

It is interesting how little interest there is in the female high school population in computer science. Might be a great hook for a female computer geek if she were to express an interest in majoring in computer science.

tongchen1226

Sigh... Louisiana...
What is wrong with my state? I thought Mississippi was worse than us, but I guess I stand corrected.

iVinshe

Wow, 81.1% of test takers got a 5 on AP Chinese? I thought the test was easy, but I wouldn't have expected the 5 rate to be that high...

GPdrummer08

1down- My school requires you to take the exam in any science or math classes you take, because these are electives. However, english, history, government and economics are not required if you take the class though many teachers have expressed that they would like to make it a requirement in the future.

hudson- Our school is very similar, but I'm the opposite. There are 3 girls out of 18 in my AP Physics, 2 girls out of 10 in BC Calculus, and a few in computer science. It's very odd though, because our top 10% is dominated by girls.

dsultemeier

I have observed the same thing with the girls. My daughter goes to an all-girls school and she is one of about five girls interested in physics, math and CS. They don't have an AP physics class because not enough girls sign up. Despite her high interest and a lot of practice my D hasn't scored very highly on the AMC test (around 80 last year) and her math SAT wasn't that high (690) compared to a 770 for the reading part. My D persuaded her school to offer the AMC starting last year and 8 girls actually showed up to take the test. (I was surprised) The girls made each other "spirit bags" the day of the exam. On the other hand the school has quite a few girls signing up for AP Bio and Chemistry. My D is taking the AP Calculus BC test this May so we'll see how that goes.

golddustwoman

My school refunds students if they get a four or a five on the AP test. But, originally, parents have to pay the fee to take the test.

At my school, people rarely get fives. Like...ever. I was the only one to get a 5 on the APUSH test (and perhaps the second ever to get one). Almost nobody passes the AP chem test (one person passed with a three last year) and most people get fours on AP lang and lit.

HomeschoolDad

On an earlier question about Calc AB and BC, these are not sequential courses, they are alternative courses. If you attend a school that offers both, and you are pretty strong in math. you take AB, if you're very strong in math you take BC.

AB is equivalent to first semester college Calc I taught over the time-span of a full year--it's a half-college-pace course. BC is a full-year course that covers Calc I and II, i.e. it is taught at college pace.

In schools that only offer AB, in which some students complete this in 11th grade and earn 4-5 AP test scores, we often see them taking in Calc II and III in senior year at a nearby college or university, if transportation and scheduling allow it.

Most of the elite-tier universities offer Honors Calculus to students with BC 5 scores. This is an extremely difficult theoretical course, best suited to physics and electrical engineering majors, as well as math majors.

Most students who have BC 5 scores but plan to major in chemistry, life sciences, or economics, in a first-tier research university, and who want to keep an option open to do undergrad research, and possibly pursue a Ph.D., should take regular calc (rather than take pass out credit), because except for a small number of public high schools, for example Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and the Bronx High School of Science, and a few dozen or so private prep schools, AP Calculus is not equivalent to first-tier research universities' regular calculus.

(Easy check: does your high/prep school's calculus course(s) use a university textbook, such as Stewart, Thomas or Hughes-Hallett? If so, taking pass-out credit is appropriate. Move on to a probability and statistics course for research-track students. (If you earned a 5 in AP Stat, move on to a p & s course for research-track students.) If your high school or private school uses an "AP Calculus" textbook, take calculus again at university.)