Need Student Reviews of AP Classes!

paws27
Sat, 20 Apr 2013 17:44:48 +0000

I am in AP Calculus AB right now.
It is probably my least favorite class. I am good at math but sometimes it gets really old (especially since we usually have semester classes but APs are full year). So I was kinda iffy signing up for the course. But my guidance counselor convinced me to. I am not as passionate about math as someone should be who takes it. But if I were to take math all 4 years of high school, I would have to take some form of calculus, and I figured it would be better to take it right after precalculus, so I took it this year as a junior. Ugh.
I hated the way that my teacher went about the course. I believe it may be her first year teaching AP. She told us at the beginning of the year that she wanted to “try out” a “flipped classroom” and had us watch some videos online outside of class to learn the concepts. That went on for the rest of the course when I thought it was just an experiment! The videos she had found were decent. We found them really annoying, but I did get a good understanding of the concepts. However, I think it would’ve been better to actually be taught in person. But of course that’s just me.
It didn’t help that my teacher was really nice but had no control over the class because she was inconsistent like that. Sometimes she would joke with us and the next minute she’d be like “guys why aren’t you listening?” It didn’t help that we always meet last block. So I am like dead tired by then. And we meet every other day and we have had so much snow this year. So we were kinda behind where we wanted to be.
The class itself was hard. I am doing decently enough that my grade is a B, but my grades on the assignments are everywhere: A, B, C, D, F. I feel like I get the concept in class, but then there are a few homework problems that trip me up. And then on the test sometimes I am lost. But usually I am confident and still end up with a C. I just took a test (our last one besides the AP test and the final) before break and I think I did really well. Like possibly an A! But I wouldn’t be surprised if I somehow got like a C.
I am apprehensive for the AP test because it is my first one and it is a lot of material and I forget stuff from earlier in the course. Of course we will review and practice and stuff though.
I think we are in better shape than the other 2 sections of the class (with 2 other teachers) though.
I thought it was interesting that there were many real world applications. However, it was hard to keep up with the concepts let alone the applications so I don’t really think it would actually be helpful or interesting. I guess I really need to study those!
Next year I plan on taking AP Statistics (once again because I am good at math and because it really is my only other math option), and AP Physics B (I couldn’t decide between this and biology, because I find biology really interesting. However, since I am more of a math than a reading person, I opted for physics)