Reply to Foundations of CS (FOCS)+AP CS Principles

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP,

A suggestion - you may not want to look at the score distribution to decide if AP CS Principles is an easy exam or not, as some other posters seem to be doing.

Using pass rates is very misleading, as you can see from the score distribution of AP Physics C E&M; it looks like it is one of the easiest AP exams, which is just not the case. The reason it appears that way is because of self selection; it is certainly a college level exam (see what kind of credit an R1 university will offer for that exam) and only advanced students take it.

At the other end of the spectrum, AP CS Principles is generally considered an easy exam (relative to other AP exams) (and usually R1 universities will give only lower level elective credits, if any, for this exam) and doable by ninth graders. Because of this reputation, lot of students take it, including those that should not. At the same time some advanced students skip it, because it is just not that important from college credit pov. DCs and their friends did not bother taking this exam at all as they knew they were going to take the AP CS A (some people also refer to this as AP CS Java) exam later anyways. So the score distribution you see does not truly reflect how easy or hard that exam is.

(Also, if you run into anyone saying AP CS is easy or difficult, always first clarify if they are referring to AP CS Principles or AP CS A. I have met quite a few parents who did not realize that there were two.)

Good luck![/quote]

This is very good advice for any AP class. [/quote]

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