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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]while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class
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All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced"). [/quote]

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more [/quote]

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As![/quote]

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were  a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.[/quote]

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?[/quote]

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it[/quote]

I think it was maybe a little the content but also a lot the teacher’s way of presenting the content and lack of support for kids transitioning from much easier MS science classes.  It’s sort of a disaster and I get the sense no one is on the same page.[/quote]

The best bio teacher who did more APEX sections retired a couple years ago - this is the true source of the problem.  I don't mind cohorted honors bio, rather than special APEX bio, but they already lose a fair share of science kids, who don't want the harder English and History. Without the harder bio they may conclude 0 benefit.[/quote]

I think the history is just the usual AP Gov/US Hist track, so not anything special to APEX.  And the APEX English wasn't really that much harder.  It was really only the Apex Bio that was so hard.  I'm not quite sure why they had to implement a totally new curriculum for it this year -- if they offered APEX bio in previous years, why didn't they just continue that curriculum?  One other criticism is that the report card does not reflect that this is a different class.  So kids are doing twice the work, getting worse grades, and their report card just says Honors Bio.  So the kids definitely don't see the benefit there.
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when the kids apply to college the counselor sends along a document outlining what apex is and i would guess it would also list the courses that are part of it 
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