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<p>Why wouldn’t a native speaker of German or French find the AP tests in those languages to be easy?</p>
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<p>There is no such thing as technically for profit. An organization is non-profit or it is not. They might be a parasite, but they are owned by their members, and those members are none other than the education community. </p>
<p>Again, colleges can blame themselves. Or better stated, the people who run our schools can blame themselves.</p>
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<p>For the sake of avoiding being caustic, may I ask you if you have checked the various foreign language tests? The German and French tests have a much higher degree of difficulty. Not elementary school level! Also, those tests are not magnets for native speakers. </p>
<p>Take a look at the score distributions … it speaks volumes.</p>
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<p>It only speaks volumes about the relative number of native speakers versus high school learners taking each test, not the relative difficulty of the tests in relation to the language knowledge. Of course, the high volume of high school learners in German or French (or Spanish) does mean that a native speaker taking the test is “hidden” in the score distribution.</p>
<p>I can’t attest to the AP exam, but I took the German SAT II in my senior year of high school after having just returned from living in Germany for a year. It was ridiculously easy to score an 800, and, while I was fluent, I was far from being able to write flawless German papers.</p>
<p>UCB, try again.</p>
<p>[2012</a> AP Exam Score Distributions](<a href=“2012 AP Exam Score Distributions”>2012 AP Exam Score Distributions)</p>
<p>Interpreting the scores is really not that hard. To get to a relative difficulty, extrapolate the heritage scores from the total group by balancing the percentages.</p>
<p>If this fails, we might have to look at a few questions.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/533113-sat-subject-tests-foreign-language-more-challenging-than-other-disciplines.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/533113-sat-subject-tests-foreign-language-more-challenging-than-other-disciplines.html</a></p>
<p>3girls3cats: I cannot, nor can anyone, infer that the Huang girl in the original article is a native Chinese speaker. It is amazing to me that anyone can make such assumption once he/she sees an Asian name. Don’t blame me for thinking that there might be some racial profiling/bias at work here.</p>
<p>It’s been more than 40 years since I took all of these tests, and I can tell you that native speakers of languages other than English were taking those tests and classes back then too. It really just shows for the record that they are truly top level in those subjects. I grew up in a foreign country, and was fluent at one time in a secoond language, and yes, I took the Sat2 Language test and the AP Exam as well. A number of my peers ended up majoring in the language and parlaying it into a career . Nothing wrong with that. When a college wants to build a department, to get students who are top notch in it is of great interest. And when it comes to jobs, the one more fluent is more desirable. Of course it works that way. The AP German, in my day, seemed to require a strong knowledge of the literature and you had to be able to write in German, much like the AP English exam but in German. I have no idea how the CHinese version are. </p>
<p>Xiggi, I am pretty sure I know which Dallas school you are refering to, and though, yes, it is awesome how well it prepares the kids for elite school admissions acceptances, it is also highly selective. My firend always was talking about how great C was, until year when her third son was rejected from there after having two brothers as legacy. He just wasn’t of the material, and believe me, if they are rejecting him as not good enough even with a legacy card, they are flltering with a mighty fine mesh and of course they are getting kids in selective schools. Can’t compare with the public schools and other privates that take kids with a broader range of abilities and knowledge. Sybbie rightfully put me in my place when we were discussing how certain Catholic schools here in the NYC are have a high (100% at times) college bound class. She’s not so impressed because she has to work with the ones that these schools not only reject but throw out after they don’t keep up to the standards! </p>
<p>Once a school has rep for being so selective and teaching their kids well, they don’t have to do state tests , or AP exams. They can deflate the grading curve and do all sorts of things and still have a good line to the more selective schools that well know that they are taking no chances accepting kids from such school. They are well preselected.</p>
<p>The AP German exam currently is nothing like the AP Lit or Language Exam. The questions where a written answer is required are few in number, and the level is more like the German translation of 4th or 5th grade questions in the old “Think and Do” workbook series.</p>
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<p>Based on statistics from the link, students took Chinese AP did much better than those took French, German, Spanish, etc.</p>
<p>Same pattern holds for students taking Calculus AB/BC and physics C compared to students taking Chemistry, physics B, environmental science, history, etc. Therefore, this skewed logic would suggest that environmental science must be the hardest test, and calculus BC the easiest.</p>
<p>And let’s compare the score distribution between calculus AB (~25% of scores are 5) and BC (~51% are 5), and therefore calculus AB test must be twice as hard as calculus BC.</p>
<p>And just maybe, one should look at the composition of the students taking these different tests?</p>
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<p>sounds like IB, though the 1000 number is quite high</p>
<p>Unless it was reviewed in the past 5 years, I can guarantee that the AP French is well beyond middle school level for native speakers. </p>
<p>Cptofthehouse, the school I mentioned is not in Dallas but in West Texas.</p>
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<p>The patterns are not similar, and there is no skewed logic at play here. I provided a link to show the differences between heritage speakers taking the AP Chinese and the total group. Eighty percent of the testers are heritage speakers and about 80 percent of those score a 5. The average score for AP Chinese is 4.56, with Asians scoring a 4.7 average. The closest average is Calculus at 3.84 and 4.0. </p>
<p>Try to find a similar pattern in any other AP Tests.</p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
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Do you have data for heritage French, German, and Italian test takers? Do they score differently from the heritage Chinese testers?</p>
<p>Is it really a surprise that students previously educated in their native languages can easily score a 5 on the language AP test (i.e. a FOREIGN language test)?</p>
<p>For non-heritage Chinese test takers, ~29% scored 5; much better than French (13%), German (12%), Italian (11%) test takers did. It does not mean that Chinese AP is not a fair and difficult test.</p>
<p>Wait, PCH, where did I assume that? I wasn’t talking about the person in the original article, I didn’t even read the article! I was referring to your suggestion that “WASPs” taking English Literature and Language APs was analogous to native or heritage Chinese students (i.e. students who study Mandarin as a foreign language in high school in the U.S.) taking the Mandarin AP.</p>
<p>You don’t know anything about my background. Please be careful in making assumptions of your own.</p>
<p>The languages are so different I can’t imagine trying to compare the two tests. It seems to me that the skills involved have to be different. One involves memorization of many many characters and writing, though I’m not sure this is tested, complex characters. There’s no phonetic alphabet and there are tones that are quite difficult to master for a non-native speaker. German, French, Spanish, even Arabic and Hebrew use a logic and an alphabet that western learners can follow more easily. So even if the test questions seem easier when read in English, someone who has not studied the language probably can’t assess the difficulty of these questions. </p>
<p>Regardless of the above, it really bothers me that native speakers are even permitted to take a test that is aimed at showing mastery of a FOREIGN language (thanks chasabao).</p>
<p>Chashaobao, read the linked data with greater attention. The heritage information is there. </p>
<p>And, the data confirms what people have said about the test. Just as the Subject Asian languages tests, the AP Chinese is trivial for a native speaker. It is a much easier test, and an incredibly irrelevant test to boot.</p>
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<p>Not sure what the big deal is. The high test score in the absence of high school course work in the language basically fits the profile of a native speaker, and colleges’ admissions committees will likely look at that accordingly in the admissions process (i.e. discount the score, except as a way to fulfill an admissions requirement of knowing a non-English language).</p>
<p>Better for the student to show proficiency with a test rather than take up space in a high school classroom just to show colleges a level 3 or 4 non-English language course. After all, English may be the student’s second language.</p>
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<p>I checked out a sample Chinese AP exam. It is definitely beyond trivial for native speakers, i.e. those went through formal schooling with the Chinese as the primary language. But I believe that the majority of 2nd generation (US born) Chinese students, who can understand and speak some conversational Chinese and even those forced to go to weekend Chinese schools, will fare very poorly on the test without spending significant and multi-year study time. </p>
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<p>The purpose of these tests is for the student to demonstrate their abilities in languages other than English. It’s only fair that native Chinese/Korean/Japanese speakers be able to demonstrate their mastery of their native tongue with an extra native language AP test. I’m certain that their high score would not impress college adcoms a bit, while a non-heritage test taker surely would. On the flip side, they also won’t be getting any break if they have poor CR and Writing SAT scores just because English is their 2nd or 3rd language.</p>