Reply to how much overlap between honor physics and ap physics 1

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "how much overlap between honor physics and ap physics 1"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m an AP physics teacher. Given that your child has taken calculus this year and also Honors Physics, AP Physics C is the most appropriate placement for him. The 1st quarter of AP Physics C is basically the same content as AP BC Calculus (kinematics). Ignore what he’s heard about the class, he is prepared for it.

AP Physics 1 is a very rigorous conceptual course - while some topics overlap with Honors Physics, the approach is different and more in depth at a faster pace. A misconception is that it is “easier” than AP Physics C. It’s not - the pass rate is one of the lowest of the APs compared to C which is one of the highest. But calculus is a barrier for many students, so this allows access.[/quote]

For what it is worth, comparison based on pass rates can be very misleading. You are probably right about OP's kid's placement in AP physics C, but I would question basing the difficulty of AP Physics 1 on the pass rate; the low pass rate could be because of who tends to take it (and when) and who skips it.

Unlike other science APs (like chem and biology) that have only one AP exam, physics has algebra based and calculus based options. For students who are anyway going to take the calc based AP Physics C exams, (for students that are planning to do Engineering in college, for example) algebra based AP Physics 1 and 2 exams are of not much value. Such students tend to skip AP Physics 1 & 2 exams and take only the physics C exams (DC knows a bunch of such kids). On the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, there are folks - including educators - who think AP physics 1 is an easy course, and there are schools that "encourage" students to take AP physics 1 too soon (even in ninth grade) when the schools should know better. The cumulative effect is to bring down the pass rate in the algebra based AP physics exams.

I looked up the 2021 statistics [url]https://allaccess.collegeboard.org/topic/ap-2021-scores[/url] - 48171 took AP Physics C Mechanics. 136,238 took AP Physics 1. Number of students that scored 3,4, or 5 in AP Physics 1 is 57220, more than the total number of students that took AP Physics C Mechanics. Number of students that scored 4 or 5 in AP Physics 1 is 31335, but for AP Physics C Mechanics, it is 25049. But the *rates* are high for AP Physics C Mechanics, even though absolute numbers are low, which makes me think there is a high probability of self selection. YMMV.

I don't understand why a student - especially a junior or senior, doing generally well academically and can handle algebra - will find AP physics 1 more challenging than AP Physics C (Mechanics).

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics