<p>Who knows… Honestly idk how they even grade these things… Or how likely you are to get credit on the FRQ if you write something that makes sense but it’s not the standard answer. I tend to do that I lot…</p>
<p>I just want the frqs to come out. For now, at least.</p>
<p>I am a parent of a student who took this new AP Chemistry test. This is the first AP test my child has taken. I am really upset with the College Board about this course. </p>
<p>Here is our situation:
Student is first in class at a large middle-class public school. Student’s tested math IQ was 148. Student has consistently scored in the top 1% on every diagnostic test taken… most recently scored a 33 on ACT taken at end of freshman year (with no preparation since it did not count as student took the exam as a participant in of Duke’s TIP). </p>
<p>Student has had great success in Chemistry honors class freshman year and has one of the highest class scores in AP chemistry class as a sophomore. However, class is curved- so student has over 100% in AP chem (an A+). Unfortunately, it appears that the class does not have sufficient rigor because student only scored a “3” on the mock AP exam given to teachers by the college board. The AP Chem teacher uses recorded lectures of concepts and then goes over the problems in class time. The class has NO TEXTBOOK. I think this is a very poor choice because then the student is very dependent on the teacher for all learning. Of note is different students have different learning styles and not having an assigned textbook puts our high school’s kids at a disadvantage IMHO.</p>
<p>However, I do believe that having a poor teacher can be overcome by a student studying on their own. Where I think the College Board has let students down across the nation is in the area of recommending written course materials- books, labs & lab notebooks, problem workbooks, review books, etc. There have been SO MANY POSTS ON COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL FROM STUDENTS LOOKING FOR APPROPRIATE STUDY MATERIAL THAT WILL COVER WHAT IS REQUIRED TO LEARN FOR THE NEW AP EXAM!!!. WHY IS THIS SUCH A GUESSING GAME??? Why is some of this communicated by College Board to the teachers (mostly in a very general manner) but College Board fails to make concrete, specific recommendations to students???</p>
<p>College Board knows what is on the exam and I am sure they know what books would be best to use to study for the exam. If they don’t know- they should find out and provide a list of recommended books. In college chemistry classes, this information is made readily available. Students are given the books that contain the information they need to know for the exams. Often times, the syllabus will contain information on obtaining additional study guides if more practice is needed on problem sets. </p>
<p>The College Board is emphasizing such things as training chemistry teachers. The fact of the matter is that most public high school students probably are not going to have great teachers. There will be great variability in how well the teacher covers the material. I imagine that this would be a huge problem in low-income school districts where it is difficult to attract and retain good AP science and math teachers. There will never be any equality across the board in regards to chemistry teachers. However, College Board can level the playing field by recommending books to students that cover the material in the way that the College Board wants it covered for success in their exams.</p>
<p>I do not believe that the College Board is concerned that students learn the material- otherwise they would be doing a better job of ensuring that all students have access to good study material instead of making it a guessing game. This is not about learning, it is about figuring out the game. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, my student had no textbook and picked a review book recommended from last year’s AP exam takers that did not cover the material in depth enough for this revised test.</p>
<p>On top of that , my student was unlucky enough to get the the dreaded Form “O”. It seems like this is an experiment, with unbelievably hard free response questions that very few students were able to master. By our calculations, we believe that our student got on the high side of a 3 on the test- just missing the 4 mark. I believe that if my student had received the other form that my student would have received a 4 on the exam. It sounds like a lot of other students on this board will be in the same position. It sounds like an experimental form and I don’t think I should have to pay for my child to take some unusual form of this test… I really would like a refund of the money I paid for this test.</p>
<p>My student will be re-taking Chemistry in college. I am going to predict that she gets an “A” with a rigorous college course. This AP Exam program has been a horrible way of teaching Chemistry. These high school students have it way harder than college students because of the lack of support they are getting from the College Board. I think all the course has done for my student is kill the dream of being a M.D… Also of note is that said student no longer likes Chemistry even though she has demonstrated in class a very high aptitude for the subject matter. </p>
<p>In summary, I have every reason to believe that my gifted, hard-working child would have mastered this first course in college chemistry if the College Board would have recommended textbooks, labs, and study workbooks as they do in college and made these specific recommendations available to the student (unfortunately, giving the info to the teachers is no guarantee that the info will be consistently passed on to the student). If the College Board were to do this, I am sure that my child would have applied herself to the recommended materials, mastered the coursework, and gone away with a great foundation of college chemistry. </p>
<p>@Smartgurl: I teach an AP Chem course. There is much frustration amongst AP Chem teachers about the lack of guidance on the new format of the exam from College Board. I doubt that College Board would ever recommend a specific textbook or guide that correlates best with the exam because they wouldn’t want to alienate publishers from making AP editions and wouldn’t want to alienate teachers that use and are stuck with certain editions of texts. If that happens again (your child doesn’t have a textbook), just go on to amazon and pick up a used college book for a few bucks. </p>
<p>As far as the grade on the exam, time apparently was a huge issue for everybody on the free response (it certainly was for my students), which means College Board will adjust for that. Any speculation on what cutoffs will be for a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 are exactly that, speculation. Not even teachers have any clue what the grading scale will be, though a lot of teachers are trying to predict. Most seem to expect a distribution similar to last years (new) AP Bio course with a nice bell curve. Very few 5s and 1s (5%-7%) and a large number of 3s (35%-40%). But again, this is purely speculation. College Board took a good amount of flack for the very tough scale, so maybe they will adjust a bit. We’ll know for sure in July, I suppose.</p>
<p>@hypnotoad107 When are the part 2’s released on ap central?</p>
<p>Should be around 4 pm today. I’m keeping an eye on it. Sometimes a little before and sometimes a little after.</p>
<p>@Smartgurl: I also teach an AP Chemistry course, and understand your frustration. However, I disagree with @hypnotoad107 about the lack of guidance from the College Board. Last summer, College Board held a series of “AP Institutes” for AP teachers to attend to learn about the new curriculum. Any teacher who attended one of those institutes recieved all of the resources, practice exams, pacing guides, laboratory materials, and overall instructional guidance they would need to successfully implement the new curriculum in their classrooms. The Institute even covered the pros and cons of the different textbooks that could be used in the course. Furthermore, College Board has many free practice materials and resources on their website. </p>
<p>Since the new exam is based on laboratory skills and critical thinking ability, it is nearly impossible to self-study for this new exam format. This is a benefit to the curriculum as a whole, because it is setting students up with the SKILLS they need for college, and not just content knowledge. AP Chemistry was never intended to be a self-study exam! Many colleges will not even accept an AP Chemistry score without a complete laboratory notebook from the course. The downside to these regulations is that students who have less-than-stellar AP Chemistry teachers, or who have a teacher who chose NOT to attend the AP Institute last summer, are at a significant disadvantage. If you daughter struggled as much as she did on the exam, I would suggest going to the principal or administration at the school to discuss the problem, and to make sure the teacher changes his or her teaching style for future courses. Any differences in teaching ability or teaching style in the AP curriculum are due to the individual teacher or school district, and should not be held against College Board.</p>
<p>@hypnotoad107 is correct about the curve. No one knows what the curve will be until they release the results, but I can tell you my students were FULLY prepared for that exam, and none of them got through more than 5 of the 7 free response questions, so I do think the curve will be lenient.</p>
<p>I will respectfully disagree with @RoseChemistry. The AP Chemistry listserv is inundated with people requesting more information about what will be on exams. I did an AP training and our trainer did not have any text and workbook evaluations. Overall, the general feeling I’m seeing is that teachers did not feel fully equipped to prepare the students for this exam. A lot of teachers weren’t even aware of the 60 question practice exam that was released (as evidence by the people in this forum requesting it). I was aware and I felt my students were pretty well prepared, but the vast majority of my students ran out of time on the free response.</p>
<p>@hypnotoad107 Sorry for my earlier assumption… I guess I just got lucky and got a good instructor for my Institute training. She gave us TONS of resources! I definitely think College Board needs to standardize that training more.</p>
<p>Do you know if your students had form D or form O? Mine had form O. I’m waiting for them to release the FRQ so we can go over them as a class, but we’ll see…</p>
<p>What’s wrong with form O? Was it harder because I had form O, and almost ran out of time down to the last second.</p>
<p>i only saw form O released on the collegeboard website, where is form D ?</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to have, in my opinion, a very good teacher for the course. I was consistently head of my class throughout the year, but the rest were still grasping the hard topics well enough. My teacher did go to the AP Institute and we were given the 60 question test just before spring break (end of April) and we analyzed the results to find out what we needed to study. We had already seen some of the newer style questions throughout the year on our chapter tests. We have also been doing FRQ’s often throughout the year, along with keeping track of time needed to take them. I finished the FRQ’s with perfect timing, I dropped my pencil exactly ten seconds before time was called. Two other students finished twenty minutes before time was called, although they apparently didn’t understand some parts and made up answers and moved on. The rest of my class did not finish the questions, most did 5 or 6 questions completely. We knew what to expect in terms of question format, however, and practiced questions of similar time length the week before the test. I can comfortably say I probably earned a 5 after reading how people did here, though that may have been due to my teacher’s preparedness.</p>
<p>OK now that the FRQ’s were released, I can ask this. Didn’t the college board say that any molecular geometry after sp3 would be eliminated? In question 5 part c, it mentions t-shaped geometry, which has hybridization of sp3d. </p>
<p>Free response is up on college board website</p>
<p>Does anyone know an uber-nerdy teaher who wouldn’t mind doing the frqs and posting them here??? </p>
<p>Just wondering where on the college board web site i might find the 2014 frq’s</p>
<p>@TheClassyCuber That doesn’t really matter, if the student understands that a trigonal planar shape for ClF3 would not have a dipole moment, it would be obvious that a T-shaped molecule would by series of elimination.</p>
<p>@Singersdad At this link: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap14_frq_chemisty.pdf”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap14_frq_chemisty.pdf</a> from <a href=“AP Chemistry Exam – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board;
<p>Thank you @moonmax and good luck to everyone on the results</p>
<p>what about the form D questions</p>