<p>Does a score of 5 on an AP test really correspond to an A in a college level course? The low border of 5’s for APs correspond to percentages that would be an F, D, or C-, so how is it that they correspond to A’s? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the lenient curves and I don’t want them to go away, I just don’t understand why this is. Does it mean that AP exams are actually harder than the corresponding college final, or that the finals also have massive curves like this? I think the reason that my school has such a high percentage of 5’s on AP tests is that the tests are comparable to AP tests in terms of difficulty, but are not curved and graded on the regular ABCDF scale.</p>
<p>I highly doubt most AP classes are college-level and getting a 5 does not mean that you canget an A in the college level course. I mean, I would guess most economic and psychology courses in college would take more than a few days of effort to get an A.</p>
<p>@GoldOwl - So your implying that AP exams take less than a few days of effort to get a 5?</p>
<p>^Yes, for econ and psych as he had mentioned.</p>
<p>^ add enviormental science to that list.
2 of my friend and I took the test this year. We pretty much studied 4 hours the morning (12am-4am) of the test and we all got 5s. (actually one of my friend was playing star craft untill 6am, he didn’t study with us.) So basically for enviormental science, it was:</p>
<p>8 hour starcraft + 2 hour sleep = 5 on enviormental sci.</p>
<p>The level of mastering that gets you a 5 on an AP is more than enough to get you an A in some college courses (like bio at some colleges), and in some college courses the curve is also very, very lenient (if it weren’t, everyone would get Ds). It depends on the college and it depends on the course.</p>
<p>^Well said.</p>
<p>and as for op’s question
it’s probably because there is some form of self-selection when it comes to ap exams. For instance, people who like/do well in the subject enroll in the ap course in the first place. And by the time ap exams comes around, those who had failed miserable in the class would not bother taking the exams.</p>