<p>Seriously, my AP Human Geography teacher is the biggest joke ever. He acts like he’s such a hot shot and how he’s going to prepare us so much for the exam but all year he has done nothing. In fact, he does not understand most of the content himself. All we’ve done is fooled around. He puts up pre-written notes from the publishing company and just reads them for each lesson which anyone can do and just assigns us quizzes. We basically had to just read the 20-page chapters ourselves. There have been no reinforcements or worksheets whatsoever. I mean seriously, if we wanted to do this we could just go home and read it ourselves during that time the class is and it’s practically the same thing. The class is ridiculously inadequate to the point where I actually WANT HW & quizzes to prepare us. Most of the students in our class still don’t understand what simple terms such as agglomeration are and basically 80% of the class is going to get below a 3. He gives us all these practice tests and FRQ to do to help us “review” but “review” for WHAT? Practically everyone doesn’t even fully understand all the information and concepts and he expects us to perform well on the tests as if we have magically diffused the information from the textbook into our heads in an instant. His overall passing rate across all his AP classes (Human Geography & Government) is 30% - and that is JUST PASSING. He’s been at the school for more than 10 years and honestly I don’t understand why the school and district complains about the low AP scores when they aren’t even checking up on these horrible teachers and they’d probably save a lot more money and receive more funding if they booted out these old but poor performing teachers with new more academically disciplined ones. Tenure laws are BS. Thank god I prepared during the summer and probably am going to be one of the few 4’s or 5’s in the class. They should get rid of these terrible teachers.</p>
<p>If that’s the case then three out of five AP teachers at my school would be fired right now. But I have to agree, most of them aren’t helping us earning the credit and can’t even teach the material properly. They keep telling “oh, it’s a college class” but none of them barely know how the tests functions. My AP English teacher start giving us testing material only a week before the exam. Until now, I still don’t know how to properly analyze a poem and I’m pretty sure that 50% of our class doesn’t know what a synedoche is. Thennn, we have you Cal AB teacher. Does he teach? Nope, he only reads off the book and it always takes at least 20 minutes to do the Do now. No one in our class, except for the smart self-study kids, could actually pass the tests. But beside from that, everyone is pretty much waiting for a 2 or a 1.
I totally understand what you are going through.
You are not alone.</p>
<p>AP Human Geo is the easiest 5 out of all tests, most of it is common sense and knowing geographical fact. If my school still had that, I’d take it in a heartbeat, all the teacher did was coloring and then some review and cool projects.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m sorry! I thought my AP world teacher was bad. He too has never given us a lesson, just reads the answers to our homework, which is all done in class, aloud from the book, but at least he has a 50% passage rate, right? 
Schools can if the guys don’t have tenure (and sometimes, if they’re really egregious, if they do), but they rarely do. It’s total bull, I agree, and the sort up with which Michelle Rhee (Oh, how I wish she were my district superintendent <3) would not put. </p>
<p>I’m sure you’ll do fine though. Human Geo is just about knowing the vocab, the examples, the city models, the demographic transition model, and having a bit of common sense.</p>
<p>lol yeah it is pretty much the easiest AP exam but that just makes it worse for those who get bad scores doesn’t it? 
maybe im just overreactinggGGgGGggGGg</p>
<p>Lol this reminds me of our former physics AP teacher. I never had him, but he had an extremely low pass rate. About 80% of the class got 1’s and 2’s I think.</p>
<p>The funny thing is, everyone wanted him for physics AP so they could have an advanced looking class with easy A’s for college. He’s now delegated to teaching regular physics.</p>
<p>I went to one of those schools where if a teacher’s students averaged a 3.5, that would probably lowest you’d find. It definitely requires effort on the part of the students and teachers though. A lot of classes have almost everyone get a 5.</p>
<p>^Yeah, the vast majority of teachers here have averages a little below 4, but are certain enough that at least one person will fail that they can make crazy bets with their classes (eg: shaving their heads if everyone passes). That’s why this guy with a 50% passage rate is such an anomaly. I, like, want him to go back to teaching school and learn what SWBAT means. Because after his class, it seems like the only thing SWBAT do is fail the AP exam in droves.</p>
<p>What does pass mean? At my college you have to get 5s on the Math/Science APs to get credit, so is only a 5 passing? Since the high school doesn’t know where everyone is going to college, how do they know what is passing?</p>
<p>I’m just wondering what pass means, because people say that but I never know what it means.</p>
<p>Anyway, I highly doubt anyone in my BC class got less than a 4. I think if a 4 would be the best you could do, you would have failed the class. But it depends on the class. I bet people in my Chem class could have passed the class and be unable to do better than a 3 on the test.</p>
<p>A passing score refers to a score of 3</p>
<p>What about the great teachers who work in low socioeconomic areas? Teachers shouldn’t be fired based on the kids’ performance because sometimes the prerequisites don’t meet up to full par into transitioning into an Ap class. My Ap lang teacher is probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. Very certified, a well-read reader, and a grammar freak to the extreme. She’s also an Ap reader for college board so she knows what to look for in an essay. Throughout the year, she showed us a range of essays from 1s to magical 9s that she had collected, assigned meaningful homework, and conducted engaging tutorials. But she still has a low passing rate. Is it her fault? She has definitely improved many of our writing skills – up to the 6-7 range, but this is because she has started off with kids writing in the 7-9 ninth grade level. Some of you guys have even said Ap Lang was an easy 5, but in our school, it’s one of the most difficult exam to pass. </p>
<p>There’s the No Child Left Behind Act though (California), where recently hired teachers are having a higher chance of getting laid off this June. My AP bio teacher is ****ed because she said she worked her butt off while the other, older teachers had put in little effort (no motivation; job’s secured). Sucks for me because many of the great Ap teachers in my school were the recently hired ones.</p>
<p>^California is a big state. The larger the government, the stupider the things it does are, and the more stupid things it does.</p>
<p>@elleway
to your first statement - yeah i guess that would not be fair. but the gov’t definitely should be doing more checkups on AP teachers but looking at socioeconomic factors to be fair of course
to your second statement - i now right?! all the old teachers, b/c of tenure, start to do anything they want because they know they can’t be fired…it’s so pathetic. and they start to form these big egos thinking they are more experienced than the new teachers when some of the new teachers clearly outperform them. sigh.</p>
<p>Similar (but different) experience Truffliepuff.</p>
<p>My sociology teacher is really really smart, but so damned lazy.
He’s only taught once this whole semester, which is such a shame, since his method of teaching is very understandable. Just sit there, and you’ll fathom whatever he says.</p>
<p>But for the rest of the classes, he reads books and SLEEPS.</p>
<p>My Human Geography teacher didn’t prepare me at all either! She never answered a question and just said “look in the book.” I and most of my friends ended up making 1’s.</p>
<p>My teachers have a passing rate of about 5% give or take (me and someone else usually) :)</p>
<p>Your guy’s schools suck.</p>
<p>Actually, my school was apparently one that a lot of teachers wanted to teach at. Like getting to teach there was better than teaching somewhere else. I don’t know that all teachers felt that way, but I remember one telling me they did, and that a lot of other teachers thought that way. Anyway, I guess a school like that would attract better teachers.</p>
<p>FYI: I haven’t read any of the other posts in this thread; just the first one.</p>
<p>At my school, we have some pretty horrible AP teachers, but nobody cares. What many people fail to realize is that, at least in Florida, AP classes and exam scores have absolutely NO effect on the school’s ranking or prestige. Every school gets a “grade” each year on their academic prosperity among other factors, but AP scores are not taken into account for the grade. A school can have a 0% AP passing rate (for the exam), but still maintain an A. All that matters is that students pass the COUNTY exams, which are usually significantly easy.</p>
<p>I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but in my school district, the superintendent of schools gets a bonus for every student who is simply IN an AP class (regardless of what they get on the actual AP exam). As a result, EVERY student is PUSHED into AP classes. They throw AP Human Geo (which is undoubtedly easy, but that’s not the point) at 99% of freshman, AP World at 95% of sophomores, APUSH and AP lang at juniors, and AP lit at seniors (while trying to push you to pursue various AP classes that interest each individual students). They (counselors and APs) are ORDERED by the county administration to push students into as many AP classes as possible, because the more students sitting in an AP class, the more money the figureheads get. </p>
<p>For AP Bio, it’s hard to cover the entire curriculum in 180 days of just 50-minute periods. Students, parents, and the ONE AP bio teacher at my school have all been pushing to make AP Bio a two-period class - meaning it would be two 50-minute periods a day. This setup would be infinitely beneficial to the students, and AP exam averages for bio would soar. But the administration won’t budge. Why? Because if they make the class longer, 1) some kids wouldn’t be willing to give up an extra period just for Bio (it would mean one less elective for them) and 2) because if you make the class two periods long, not as many students can take the class (capacity would be cut in half) which means less cash in the administration’s pockets.</p>
<p>Here’s the kicker…In the words of my AP Bio teacher: “The administration doesn’t care about our AP scores, and they make this very clear to us when we are hired as teachers; they tell us “The only people who care about your AP exam scores are you and your students. Not us.””. </p>
<p>Isn’t this horrible? I hate the political scheme that they call a school district. I’m never putting my kids into a public school system.</p>
<p>One of my AP teachers is so bad that she didn’t even know that there is a 1/4-point penalty for wrong answers. She’s been an AP teacher for at least 7 years, AND she’s a reader for the exam essays! Her excuse was: “I grade the essays, not the multiple choice.” Okay, seriously? Holy cow…</p>
<p>You guys should self study or something kekeke.</p>
<p>My school district cannot fire teachers based on pass rates. They can either ask another teacher to teach the course or drop the course if the pass rate and enrollment decrease. That won’t happen anytime soon. My school will have record AP enrollment and pass rates are 60% or better for nearly every AP course. </p>
<p>Truffliepuff, I’m sorry your teacher is terrible. You could’ve been more confident preparing for yourself, and it’s a good thing you prepared yourself so you’ll likely earn a 4 or 5. I play to study APHG by myself. I hope I can have a 100% pass rate.</p>