<p>At my high school we have one AP lit. class and it is taught by the teacher who teaches 9th-11th grade honors English. However in those honors classes, he teaches AP lit. content to his class so basically the curriculum taught during the AP class is taught partially during the prior years. So there is a 3 year curriculum. Would you say this is a tad bit of an unfair advantage? Do other schools do this? I believe his pass rate was also in the 90%. It seems a tad sketchy since the national average is 60%… What do you think, is it unfair?</p>
<p>Not particularly.</p>
<p>The AP Physics B program at my school is disguised as a two-year course, first year focusing on chemistry (not AP), and then AP Physics. But it’s just two years of physics with “chemistry” being thermodynamics.</p>
<p>I just feel like AP lit is supposed to be a year long class. I think anything taught for 3 years could result in a high pass rate. I’m just having an argument with my friend and trying to prove a point.</p>
<p>definitely not unfair. In fact, this is not too unccommon For example, in many schools science classes span two years, one year Pre-AP and then an AP year, and the curriculum does mesh (In my AP Chem class, we skipped the first 3 chps b/c it was assumed prior knowledge. We could’ve skipped more if the teacher had wanted to).</p>
<p>The AP English curriculum in my school spans all 4 years, with 2 Pre-AP and 2 AP. Now, I don’t think that Pre-AP is rigorous enough in my school to compare to yours, but the concept is the same.</p>
<p>Of course it’s not cheating. Many schools stretch one year AP courses into 2 year AP courses, and I’m sure there’s no restriction if the school wants to stretch the parts of an AP curriculum to 5 years (though somewhat pointless for classes other than language). A 90% pass rate is very average in relatively high performing schools.</p>
<p>At our school, 9th and 10th grade have lit topics, and 11th grade is AP lit itself.</p>
<p>Spanish IV, Spanish V AP, and Spanish VI AP Lit all read stories off of the assigned reading list. It’s not cheating, just good planning.</p>
<p>We have Pre-AP classes in my school that you take before the real AP class. It seems like your situation is kind of the same thing, just a different name. Although, we do have honors classes as well. </p>
<p>But anyway, no, it’s not cheating.</p>
<p>My French class last year was technically level 4, but in reality it was the unofficial “Pre-AP” class. My teacher taught everyone a lot of the vocab and some of the topics that were assigned for the AP French Test. This is actually really very common. In every AP class like Lit, Lang, Chem, etc., you’ll always bring in some prior knowledge of the subject that you’re studying. That’s not cheating in the slightest.</p>
<p>As an AP teacher, I agree that this is definitely not cheating. It is probably good teaching. AP Lit is not about memorizing, but rather about developing high-level skills in thoughtful reading, careful analysis, and clear mature writing. These are the same skills that every English teacher tries to develop in any high school English course. </p>
<p>In courses which are more content-based rather than skill-based (i.e. focused on memorization rather than thinking) , I still would not call it “cheating” to spread a course over two or three times the usual time, but if that time could be used for learning other material, then I would say it might not be an efficient use of learning time.</p>
<p>Try having it taught in 18 weeks rather than an entire year…</p>
<p>Not cheating.</p>
<p>Definitely not cheating. I would say your school is lucky to have such an excellent teacher.</p>
<p>Why do you care? It’s obviously not cheating.</p>
<p>How is that cheating? Is studying in the summer before you take a class cheating?</p>
<p>I vote not cheating.
If anything, that’s freaking brilliant. All schools should do this. The fact that this teacher has a 90% pass rate, way over the national average, doesn’t mean we have a cheater.
We just have someone who knows how to get stuff done.</p>
<p>It’s English… it’s basically grammar and writing. Unless he goes over AP expectations for freshmen (still not cheating) I don’t understand why you think it would be?</p>
<p>Not unfair whatsoever. The AP program doesn’t care about what schools do. Just as long as said school gets good results, who cares?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say it’s cheating. At my school, Honors English 10 does a lot of AP essay practice and Chem I Analytical (a prereq for AP Chem) covers many AP topics. I’d say it’s good preparation, not cheating.</p>
<p>One potential problem with spreading course material over multiple years is that students may get surprised at the pace of actual university courses.</p>
<p>For example, AP Calculus BC is supposed to be a one year course that is similar to a year of freshman calculus in university. However, many high school districts appear to require students who reach calculus in junior year (i.e. two years ahead, theoretically the top students in math) to take a year of AP Calculus AB, then another year of AP Calculus BC continuing from where AB left off. This means learning calculus at half the speed that one would learn it in university, so the pace of a university math course may be a shock to students who thought that their AP Calculus over two years was representative of “university level” math.</p>
<p>At my school calc bc is a semester course…</p>