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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have you all seen the statistics on AP testing results? ABYSMAL. We are talking only 5-9% getting a 5 and that is with a curve.

I am not sure the point of AP classes in high school. High school teachers can not teach them like college professors and the kids don’t have the time to digest them.

Public’s really need to start follow private school lead and offer advanced honors courses that prepare the kids for college courses, not try to cram a college course in from Aug to April and having kids take multiple AP tests and missing other classes during school time to do it. It is just way too chaotic to have juniors taking SAT or ACT, SAT subject tests, AP finals, other finals, and term papers all in the span of 1-2 months. These kids aren’t LEARNING anything. It is anxiety induced memorization. 
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Agree about the teachers. You want college classes? Go to community college. [/quote]

Community college classes at ours (MC) are easily less rigorous than the AP classes that I teach.  I've had students in both.  Think about the cohorts...[/quote]

An AP course is usually taught over the course of 2 semesters, a CC course is generally only 1 semester.  There are pros and cons to both.  Certainly you have more of an opportunity to go into depth in a year long course than you would if the course was condensed into one semester.  [/quote]

Well if you take a non AP Calculus in high school and THEN take Calculus in college, you get a much more thorough teaching, correct?  This is what almost the entire country did prior to AP’s.

So to now say that an AP Cal course goes slowly is actually incorrect. Many kids go from Pre-Calc in high school to one year of AP Calc BC. Then they try and skip Calc 1 and Calc 2 in college. There is no comparison. AP’s are trying to whiz thru Calc on multiple choice questions to get you ready for college? Please.

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I'll pose this question:  "Which is easier for a student who has never taken calculus before:  year long AP Calc AB, Calculus 1 during fall semester community college or Calc 1 summer session at the community college?"

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New poster here. Most kids in our school do not take Calc AB. Most skip right to BC like someone else mentioned. I would say 80%   The only kids that may take AB are seniors who have no desire to go into anything science or math related and took a slower track. But most of those kids end up taking AP Stats as it is deemed easier and you can bypass a math course in college. Not sure how it is elsewhere. [/quote]

AB is the equivalent of College Calc 1 and BC is the equivalent of College Calc 2.  I suppose they are using AB/BC to place out of Calc 1 and Calc 2 in college?[/quote][/quote]

Reposting correctly...

The thought is Pre-Calc is teaching A but it really is not. Calc BC is basically ABC at quick speeds, tons of homework to make up on missed concepts, and not very in depth thought producing. Since the AP has more multiple choice which is weighted more heavily, the high school staff focus on past tests and basically teach to pass. Between so many days off, holidays, breaks, and snow days, you would be surprised how little time there is. Also AP staff grade on a curve and on the written portion, each person grades the same question for everyone. So if you have enough compared to everyone else, you get a better grade. The written portions are graded very easily hence the high pass rates of those tests compared to many others.

That said there is a struggle. STEM kids want to show rigor so bypassing AB to BC shows that. But then in college 99% of the STEM and engineering schools make you retake Calculus anyway. It is very hard to bypas because they know the kids aren’t prepared. It is a catch 22.

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I'm sure that they find college calc to be a different animal....but I'll bet that they are glad to have the BC calc under their belts.  That way they go into Calc 1 with some good background.

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