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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is my tenth year of being an English professor. I teach at a liberal arts college ranked in the 75-100 range on US News and yes, I have seen a difference in my students’ abilities since I began. Their writing skills have declined and there is much more of a need for what I call cookbook (or recipe) style academics — many of them seem need (and ask for) an exact, specific set of directions on assignments, much like a recipe.

I do think that AP classes contribute to this. It is a very formulaic-style of learning that does not replicate the skills that one needs to succeed in a college class. For example, this is the type of question that one would see on say, the AP Government exam: “Describe the Tenth Amendment.” This type of question, that requires nothing but memorization and recall on the part of the student, really does nothing to facilitate long-term learning or critical thinking skills. [/quote]

This is a very misleading example of an AP US GoPo exam question.  If they were to describe the Tenth Amendment, it would be part of a larger question, as in this actual 2019 question:

Based on the information above, respond to the following questions.
A. Identify the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that was used as the basis for the decision in both
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Hernandez v. Texas (1954).
B. Explain how the facts in both Brown v. Board of Education and Hernandez v. Texas led to a similar
decision in both cases.
C. Explain how an interest group could use the decision in Hernandez v. Texas to advance its agenda.

[/quote]
You’re right. I forgot they redesigned the exam for 2018-2019. I still don’t think these questions are good preparation for the level of rigor required in a college-level course, but they are certainly better than they were before the redesign. Here is a question from the 2018 exam, which is just so incredibly surface level:
1. Political parties seek to win elections to control government.
(a) Identify two activities that political parties do to win elections.
(b) Describe one way third parties can affect elections.
(c) Explain how single-member districts make it difficult for third parties to win elections.
(d) Explain how electoral competition is affected by gerrymandering.
[/quote]

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