<p>Today, my D took a preview of the AP German test. She says she got more than half of the questions wrong. She is thinking of not taking the test. It is not mandatory at her high school. Will this look bad on her college applications?</p>
<p>My theory is that if I were an admissions officer I’d assume a kid who doesn’t report a score got a 1. She might be surprised at how many questions you can get wrong and still get a respectable score. As a junior taking an AP in a foreign language she’s fairly unusual. I doubt even a 1 or 2 would hurt her. Most colleges say they don’t care what your score is, they want to see that you took a challenging curriculum.</p>
<p>It’s better to not take it than to take it and fail it. </p>
<p>Admissions will never know she took it since APs are self-reported. I’d say go ahead and have her take it.</p>
<p>Anyone telling you not to take the test because it will look bad is WRONG. There is no reason to disclose bad test AP test scores to colleges. AP scores are never reported by on your test report until after you are admitted.</p>
<p>Agree with the two previous posts. You can actually get many questions wrong and still do relatively well on an AP test. Since AP tests are self-reported, she can see her score before deciding whether she wants to disclose it to the colleges.</p>
<p>You have already paid for the test, so have her relax and take it. Report the scores if they are good, and don’t report them if they aren’t. It makes no difference at all if her transcripts show an AP class, but she chooses not to submit a score. </p>
<p>Do you know what the grading scale is? Half wrong might not be as bad as she thinks. Can she ask the teacher about this–the teacher should be able to give her an idea of what score that represents. High school kids are used to getting scores upwards of 90% but I think in general the AP tests are more forgiving. This is why teachers who use AP questions on class exams sometimes will curve the grades up. If a 65% is a 4 or a 5, good grades in the college board’s opinion, it’s not really fair to give a student with those scores a D.</p>
<p>She should ask her teacher what the curve is or look up the curve on the internet if available. For AP Chem, approx. 66% or more correct yields a 5.</p>
<p>My opinion also is that language APs are a different animal. The brightest kids in the class find it hard to get a 4 or 5 unless they are native speakers. My daughter got 5s on absolutely everything but got a 3 in French. She’s at a HPYM. I also encourage you to look up the curve. </p>
<p>I don’t know how accurate the AP Pass Calculator actually is, but me son uses it all the time and has felt that it was a good indicator of his actual scores. <a href=“AP French Language Test Score Calculator - AP Pass”>http://appass.com/calculators/frenchlanguage</a> </p>
<p>Also, as far as not taking the exam, my son will not be the taking APWH exam this year as it is at the same time as one of his economics exams. He wants to major in economics, plus he already has AP Gov and APUSH in the social science area. We tried finding an alternate testing site, but didn’t have any luck. </p>
<p>If she gets a 3 she may be able to aviod 2 years of a language in college. Half wrong could be a 3 or even better. She should not give up this chance to get credit for foreign language!! You do not need to report AP scores. Self report 4s and 5s. Dont even mention the others.</p>
<p>“The brightest kids in the class find it hard to get a 4 or 5 unless they are native speakers.” I don’t think that’s really true. Our school does pretty well with few native speakers. </p>
<p>^ Obvious, it is all relative. I have no doubt that in some schools no one get a 5 in certain AP even for the “smartest” kid in the class.</p>
<p>I think the AP exams don’t demand anything approaching native fluency. Of all these exams, you would expect the Spanish language scores to be skewed by the huge number of heritage speakers, but my much-less-than-fluent daughter was still able to score 5.</p>
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<p>If as a Junior you have on your transcript a course called AP German, it is safe to assume that you were going to take the AP test.</p>
<p>Some colleges have places to report AP scores. So if you don’t report it, they will assume that either you took the test but decided not to report it, or you took the AP class but for some reason decided not to take the AP test.</p>
<p>My view is to take it.
The curves are very generous.</p>
<p>No. School would not assume you take the AP exam if you are taking the AP classes. Taking AP classes is mainly for a more challenging curriculum. Taking AP exam is mainly for college credits. For students that know a certain subject would not give them credit at their target school, they would not even take the test. That is more typical for senior students but also apply to Junior students if they have already set their mind. There are also quota for the number of credit by AP at many schools. So one may strategically pick the AP exam to take to maximize their chance for the highest credit one may get. One may take AP class without AP exam. Also, there are students taking AP exam without taking AP class.</p>
<p>Do not just take it. Study more, improve and then take it. If clss material is not helpful, strongly recommend Rosetta Stone, It is a miracle that I would not believe myslef if I did not try. I have no memory and I lost whatever little I have. Foreign language is not related much to ability to learn but much more to ability to get a proper instruction. .
However, I got to note that IMO, Spanish is much easier than German. I do not believe though that fluency is required to receive a good score in AP. </p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your helpful replies. davenmame, the link to the AP curves is very helpful. I found out that only the UC’s will automatically see the AP scores. The College Board sends them everything. She is applying to a UC so will need to consider that. </p>
<p>I don’t think you should worry about UC’s. Colleges are well aware that at many, many high schools language instruction is not very good, and it’s something that is hard to study on you own. But I am betting she’ll do better than she expects to on the test.</p>