I am senior who is attending a BS/MD Program in the fall. Right now most of my teachers are giving us our in class final exams. My AP Bio teacher really isn’t that great at teaching and we’ve had to self teach ourselves most of the year, the only problem is that he likes to gives us unit tests that are very specific and that have questions you cannot answer unless you read every single word of each chapter, which has made the year very frustrating. I was able to get very good grades in his class because I studied enough, but kept my study time within reason, he also made my grade better by curving the exams based on class average, and since my score was better than the average my grades on test were good. However on the final exam he said that there wouldn’t be specific questions from each chapter, just important ideas, well I took the test and about 15 questions out of the 50 had really specific info. I got a 41/50 and the class average was around a 35/50, the only problem is that he said he is not going to curve this exam which means that even after carrying a 100 through two semesters of his class my final average will be a 96. To be honest I didn’t really think about it that much because of my mild case of senioritis. The only problem I have is my parents who are now coming down on me for not trying hard enough, even though I studied at least 6 hours for this exam, and are telling me that I’m going to get kicked out of my BS/MD program next year if I keep this up. Are my parents right because I’m starting to believe what they’re saying even though I know I tried my best and actually worked hard to try and get a good grade on that test.
Your parents are coming down on you because you have a 96 in AP Bio??? Yikes.
You’re not going to get kicked out of anything because you have a slightly-lower-A instead of a perfect score.
I just can’t take my parents’ constant yelling about how I’m going to flunk out of the program if I don’t try. They think I don’t know that it’s gonna take a whole lot of hard work, I do know it will and I’m prepared to work as hard as I need to make the most of this awesome opportunity I have.
Both you and your parents need a lesson on what constitutes a “bad grade.”
This will not be you last experience with a less-than-ideal teacher and , trust me, nobody will have any desire to listening to you describe how terrible the teacher is. BTW, be aware that in college, the odds of anyone getting close to a 100 in a class without a curve is close to zero.
Agreed.
College is very different from high school. Exam are more often open-ended of the analyze, synthesize, apply information. You need factoids to do the conceptual piece, but the big picture and applications are more important.
At college, teachers are called faculty because of their expertise in a particular area. Many enjoy teaching and do a stellar job. College learning is more like an independent study in which you read the textbook and whatever else is required and explore the library and other resources. Faculty may not mention a topic in class, but you will still be held responsible for that content on an exam. Be very careful to take down whatever is on the board because it was important enough for the teacher to emphasize. As long as the teacher has the information, there is no reason for him/her to be interesting. Some people simply aren’t interesting, but you are not forming a social relationship.I know it is preferred by all of us, but a boring teacher can be an excellent teacher. Enjoy learning for the joy of it!
The 96 will still get you the A. Your point about being a top performer in your class is spot-on. In every class, students vary by skills and content knowledge. I think, and know from personal experience, that the lineup remains about the same whether to test is difficult or easy.
Your parents are expecting too much. Probably because it seems different than they are used to seeing for your grades and their perspective is warped. They may also be feeling the stress of things changing and their baby going off to school. At this point, I would just agree that you will work harder in college. At some point over the summer, after high school graduation, maybe you guys can discuss how you will be doing your best in college but that no one is perfect and it’s ok. That they need to trust that they’d taught you well and you are a hard worker, that you learn from mistakes, and mostly that if they expect absolute perfection, they will not only be disappointed but they will be putting so much pressure on you that it could have the opposite effect.