<p>^^ Who is conceited?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sorry, I should have specified. I was talking about the OP, not you. I agree that a 5 on Math/Science (Math especially) doesn’t necessarily show that much knowledge of the subject.</p>
<p>
Wow, I’m not conceited at all. I’m actually very reserved and generally keep to myself about my accomplishments and such. I thought I’d be able to get by with a post like that on CC, considering all that most of the people on here do is run around bragging about how they’ve taken 20 AP exams and gotten 5s on 19 of them. </p>
<p>I never said I wanted people to tell me that I’m so smart because I got a 5. What I said was that my parents don’t quite understand what a 5 means. They’re proud for me when I get A’s, and do well in school in general, but to them, getting a 5 is like getting an A on anything else. In reality, getting a 5 is so much more. All the work and effort put forth during the school year and all the reviewing I did is what got me a 5. Not the ease of the test, and not some ingenuity I have that nobody else does.</p>
<p>To most of the people on here, who happen to be super-geniuses, yes, the exams are cakewalks. But to the average bright, intelligent, gifted student, they aren’t necessarily the easiest things in the world. I do agree that the AP Bio exam was rather easy, but that’s because I kept up with the readings all year, and I read Cliff’s from front-to-back the weekend before the exam. If I didn’t do any of the readings, do I think I could have relied on the little bit that I picked up in class lectures to get a 5? No. The exams are as easy as you make them by reviewing and preparing sufficiently.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you totally misinterpreted my post.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe I did misinterpret it a bit, but honestly I’d rather have straight A/A+ than 5’s on all my AP’s. I got a few A minuses and a B+ and felt that I put in more work getting those A minuses than getting a 5 on my AP tests.</p>
<p>
I agree. I’d never trade my As away just to get a 5. This year I took my first two AP classes, and I got a 5 on one and a 4 on the other. A’s in all classes. That’s very satisfying to me. Yes, I could have got a 5 on the second AP exam, but I’m fine with a 4.</p>
<p>If it ever came down to it, I’d definitely prefer to keep my straight As.</p>
<p>I would rather have a 5 than an A in an AP class, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That all depends on what colleges your taking those intro courses at. The way CB sets the scores is by comparing them to students of mid/low tier colleges that CCers look down upon, so maybe thats why it seems like the scores are different. Also, college humanities courses focuses much more on critical thinking rather than objective learning, which is what the AP test tests on… making it easy to self study for all those history AP exams with relative ease…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>After looking through several college math textbooks, including the one I used for AP Calculus, I can say - with great disappointment in the College Board - that this is true. While I may have gotten a 5 on the Calculus (AB) exam, I know that I did not fully grasp all of the material tested; there is no way I would have gotten an A in college.</p>
<p>The same goes for Biology. The amount of crap I spewed for the FRQs was incredible. Art History, on the other hand, is - in my opinion - the exam that comes closest to approaching something like a college course.</p>
<p>You have to understand that half of the people in college taking those classes don’t take more than half of the materials with them after they leave the classroom. Most people just study for the tests without actually understanding the material (that mostly goes for math and science classes) which is probably why you saw a big discrepancy with the amount of knowledge in the textbooks.</p>
<p>^Oh, that is entirely true. However, though I usually study material to understand it, not pass tests (which most likely explains my final grades this year), I was shocked by how much I managed to get away with this year. </p>
<p>But thank you for your explanation.</p>
<p>That’s an awful comparison. Sure, 82nd percentile on ACT is about a 26. However, you have a lot of stupid people take that test, whereas on the AP exams, typically only the smarter people will take. It’s almost like omitting the bottom 25%-50% of the people from the ACT…</p>
<p>I would just go with the truth. How much you worked and reviewe for it, how much you wanted it, and how much money it will save you.</p>
<p>@HollaAtMeSon In making a percentile comparison between the two tests I was in no way claiming that a 5 on an AP test is equivalent to (or as hard to get) as a 26 on the ACT. All I meant by the comparison was to put the number of people who get a 5 (out of the total number who take it) into perspective by comparing with a number that is pretty familiar to high school students-the percent of people who get higher than 26, which quite a few people clearly do.</p>