I’m shocked at how little homework D19 has junior year compared to sophomore year. Maybe I’m just not remembering correctly, but it seemed like she always had homework in several classes every day last year. This year, seems like she either has homework in one class or none.
At first, I attributed it to the school taking it easy the first week of school. Then I attributed it to the school taking it easy after the hurricane. But the hurricane was a month ago and she’s still hardly working.
Not really complaining because I think they overworked her last year. But am really surprised.
As for college visits, with her XC schedule, we don’t have time. We visited some schools on the east coast while we were on vacation, but she has no real desire to go there. We just visited so she’d have a baseline to compare her real schools to.
There’s a local college fair next week, so I figure we’ll get a better idea of what schools to visit then. D19 is off of school the entire Thanksgiving week, so I think we’re going to make a road trip to some schools where she’s likely to get generous merit aid.
If you guys want to see homework, come on over here. S19 getting home at 6:00 from XC and doing homework from 7-12 on a regular basis. ugh. Math is always an hour every night. Has been since freshman year. And APUSH and AP Lang have really gotten into high gear with the writing. I feel so bad for him but he’s in pretty good spirits.
Tomorrow, he has a meet in a town one hour away. Bus leaves at 4:00 and he won’t be home until 10:00. Not exactly how that’s going to work with homework.
My S19 didn’t do homework (at home) or study for tests last year. If he had a math test, he would do all the homework for the unit the night before and that was all I saw him do. He still has days where he doesn’t do anything (see this entire past weekend). But he was doing homework for 5 or 6 hours last night and it seems like tonight will be a repeat.
I’ve given up on the SAT prep for this weekend’s test but he at least did a practice test over the weekend and did a little better than he had before. If anyone has any last minute tips for doing the non-calculator math quickly, please pass them on, haha.
I feel bad for our kids. My S19 fell asleep at the computer last week. I sent him to bed and got him up early to continue. For the past three weeks he gets home at 7, eats, then studies until 11-12. Saturdays he either has practice or a game…which for some reason takes the whole day/evening. Sunday morning he tries to catch up on his tv shows (loves Gotham/Preacher), then off to SAT class for the afternoon, then more studying Sunday night. He is taking the SAT this Saturday and I know he hopes he does well so that he can take one thing off his plate. And football & orchestra are picking up…but at least these EC’s are stress relievers.
Overwhelming amounts of homework here, I know it’s because of the courses she chose but it’s one thing to know it’s coming and another to live under it.
Minimum of 3 hours a night, including Friday nights and at least half the day each Saturdays.
@eh1234 two teachers have been curving the grades. AP bio says he does it to mimic the AP exam. APUSH hasn’t really explained. He used old AP exam questions, I think, and when they discuss them he agrees that some questions have multiple answers that seem reasonable.
@eh1234 One strategy that S19 used for each math section was to do the multiple choice in order until there were four left. Then, he skipped to the grid-in questions, finished those, and went back to the multiple choice questions he skipped. The grid in questions go from easy to hard so the first few grid ins are easier than the last multiple choice questions. Plus, if he runs out of time and has multiple choice questions left, he can guess. Can’t guess on the grid ins.
S19 used PWN the Math and it really helped him review where he had forgotten geometry concepts. You can match your answers from the official College Board tests to a chart in the back of the book. Then, that chart takes you to the chapters in the book you need to review.
Thanks for the math tips! He’s not really struggling with the material but is spending too much time on certain questions. He got all of the calculator section questions correct on the last practice test.
I’ll suggest that he try skipping ahead to the grid-ins. I wouldnt dare suggest that he disturb the pristine unopened prep books!
@eh1234 That’s exactly where S19 was two weeks before the Aug SAT. Knew his stuff but felt rushed. It was much better once he skipped to the grid ins. Huge epiphany. Felt confident after making that change and ended up with an 800 on the math section for the Aug test.
The calculus teacher just called me - she gave me her cell phone and told me to call any time. She said that my kid obviously understands the basic concepts she’s teaching, he just made some basic addition/subtraction/multiplication mistakes that threw his answers off. Things like saying x/x = 0 instead of x/x = 1.
She said she doesn’t give out her cellphone very often, so I feel special. She also said that kids who have meltdowns like this early (and get them out of the way) often turn into her best students. Hopefully she’s not just buttering me up.
@ninakatarina my son17 had a bit of difficulty with his first semester of honors pre-calc. He just couldn’t really wrap his mind around it, but he went in for extra help every week and managed to end up with a decent grade by year end.
He’s taking calculus now and he score his first 100 on a math test, he was super happy. So there is hope for the kids that don’t necessarily grasp it fully immediately!
My younger son19 is in the same class this year, and he tells me how many kids are struggling. The teacher told me that approximately 1/3 of the kids in the class really struggle, 1/3 sort of figure it out, and 1/3 just pick it up without issue. She tries to work extra hard with the kids that are having issues now so they can be stronger students by years end.
Good luck!
@ninakatarina I remember my d19 struggling with the lack of calculator early in precalc last year too. I agree that knowing the concepts is the most important part. It did get better as she got more used to it and she caught more of her careless errors.
MOUNTAINS of homework here, the only way to describe it. And difficult, too. D has rarely fallen below an A average at any time during HS but currently has Bs in AP Chem (her hardest class), AP English Lit, and AICE Math (pre-calc).
Luckily we are on a quarter system -do most HSs do this? So if she gets a B for 1 quarter she still has a chance to get an A for the year if she steps it up during the other 3.
Quite honestly, my biggest concern this year is D’s emotional well being. I think we can all agree on how stressful Junior year can be. D worked so hard last year and had so much homework, she had zero social life at all. She was so miserable sophomore year that we had a big chat over the summer as to the fact that there has to be more to life than schoolwork, and she agreed. So she’s signed up for music & art classes this year, as well as now dating a very sweet young man (who also seems to have as much on his plate as D does) but at least she’s getting out a few times a week this year and seems so much happier. So what if she gets a few Bs?! I just want her to be happy and try to enjoy this time in her life.
I just realized I said AP bio in earlier posts. I have no idea why… maybe because she is thinking of taking it next year. It’s AP chem with the curve. Reading SunnyFlorida’s post is what made it click for me that I said the wrong science. D gets annoyed with me because I am always mixing up those classes.
I have asked her to reconsider AP bio for next year. She will already be taking AP physics and a load of other difficult classes. She won’t need to double up sciences yet again and I know she had less interest in bio. We will see. If I am guessing right, she will probably take it anyway. (Our school will be asking them about course selections in early December, which is why it’s come up already)
After reading all the latest posts, I almost feel like we’re cheating here. Son is having a very easy year. He has almost no homework and grades seem to be much better than last year. His favorite class is AP Gov and he currently has an A- in it so we’re happy. He really is just kind of coasting this year. There is lots of free time for basketball, going to the gym and hanging out with friends. I’ve been expecting the workload to pick up but so far its very light.
He is starting to show more interest in college. Last Saturday night he got together with friends to watch college football and play poker and somehow they all ended up looking at Naviance and trying to figure out what schools they can get into. It must have been a boring football game.
Now if I can just get him to look at the practice PSAT booklet they gave out before he takes the test, we’ll be set.