"Light" and "Heavy" AP courses

bluebayou
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 04:16:26 +0000

I was surprised that APES also had a low pass rate. What do you suppose is the reason for that?

Self-selection has to be part of it. Just like the really strong math students take Calc BC, the not-so-strong science students will gravitate to APES, at least in our HS.

I have to say that I get peeved when APES is discussed as a “worthless” and easy AP course.

Definitely not worthless, but it really is not much more than a subset of Bio. If I recall, Campbell’s covers the ES material in the back end 5 chapters of the Bio text. Thus, it becomes really easy material for anyone who has previously taken AP Bio.

But the issue for APES, IMO, is the lack of standardized curriculum. As a result, it can end up with a lot of busy work, depending on the teacher: points for beach cleanup, anyone?