Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child did 9th grade AP physics upon recommendation from her middle school teacher last year.

It was a mistake.
90% of the class were not fully prepared for taking physics at such a young age. Most of the students struggled in varying degrees. Some got tutors. The teacher made adjustments, the process was a slug. My child managed to navigate the class through the year, but it was a chore. First time to ever struggle with a subject of any kind.

I don't know if Blair made any changes this year or not, but I highly recommend of passing physics for 9th grade. There's little benefit to taking it freshman year. It's an experiment that Blair seems determined to make fit, whether it actually works or not.

Did your child earn an A or B? Also, did your child take the exam?

Anonymous wrote:My child did 9th grade AP physics upon recommendation from her middle school teacher last year.

It was a mistake.
90% of the class were not fully prepared for taking physics at such a young age. Most of the students struggled in varying degrees. Some got tutors. The teacher made adjustments, the process was a slug. My child managed to navigate the class through the year, but it was a chore. First time to ever struggle with a subject of any kind.

I don't know if Blair made any changes this year or not, but I highly recommend of passing physics for 9th grade. There's little benefit to taking it freshman year. It's an experiment that Blair seems determined to make fit, whether it actually works or not.

Anonymous wrote:Math and Physics tutor here:

I think the AP Physics I is pretty difficult and is a lot for a 9th grader - even advanced students or those with access to tutors.

I am curious of the AP scores earned by 9th graders on the exam. The AP stats that I know don't break down the scores by grade level. Anyone know where to find them? I am sometimes asked for input to course selection and would love to know this information.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Physics 1 is one of the more difficult AP courses. It's not about the math level - it has a lot of deep conceptual reasoning that is challenging for younger teen brains. College Board adjusted it to remove a couple of units that were sort of disconnected, so there should be less time pressure next year. It's not a course I would recommend for 9th grade, but Blair does its own thing.

-AP Physics 1 teacher

I asked a Blair counselor about this and they said don't worry about it, the kids they place do well. Do you think this is true for the most part? Any idea why Blair does this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Physics 1 is one of the more difficult AP courses. It's not about the math level - it has a lot of deep conceptual reasoning that is challenging for younger teen brains. College Board adjusted it to remove a couple of units that were sort of disconnected, so there should be less time pressure next year. It's not a course I would recommend for 9th grade, but Blair does its own thing.

-AP Physics 1 teacher

I asked a Blair counselor about this and they said don't worry about it, the kids they place do well. Do you think this is true for the most part? Any idea why Blair does this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Physics 1 is one of the more difficult AP courses. It's not about the math level - it has a lot of deep conceptual reasoning that is challenging for younger teen brains. College Board adjusted it to remove a couple of units that were sort of disconnected, so there should be less time pressure next year. It's not a course I would recommend for 9th grade, but Blair does its own thing.

-AP Physics 1 teacher

I asked a Blair counselor about this and they said don't worry about it, the kids they place do well. Do you think this is true for the most part? Any idea why Blair does this?

Because the demographics in Blair (the usual suspects) will take a lot of sh1t from Blair administration and teachers (since they want the LOR for college), and the parents will make up for all the knowledge gaps by teaching everything themselves to their students or by getting them tutoring.

Let me be more clear - the problem with having Asian American students in any classroom is that they will not complain even if the quality of education is craaap. They will quietly take on the burden themselves and sacrifice time, resources, peace of mind, money - to educate their child themselves. The school does not care because on paper their stats look AMAZING and makes them look good. MCPS loves to have Asian American students because they require no effort in teaching. However, they also hate them because they don't want to give them any resources.

When AA or HI or poorer WH kids come to Blair, believing that there is something magical in the air, they are left underperforming because they don't realize that there is zero help from the teachers, and Asian Americans are only doing well because they are killing themselves and their mental health doing the entire hard work at home.

Anonymous wrote:Yes they would take the AP exam the same year they take the class. The teachers provide review sessions to help prepare for the exam. As for PP’s question about tutors, Our older son who had taken AP Physics 1 at another HS so helped DD and her Blair study group on occasion. He served as a physics tutor at his own HS, helping freshmen, so I guess he served as DD’s tutor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair really pressures students taking Algebra II to simultaneously take AP Physics (so much so that even though my child registered for a different science class, the school enrolled her in AP Physics in the summer and DC had to contact them to switch it back). DC took Honors Bio instead and is very happy with that decision. Even before virtual learning, DC had heard horror stories about AP Physics in 9th grade and I'm sure being virtual made the class even more challenging.

Is Algebra II standard for Blair SMAC 9th graders?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Physics 1 is one of the more difficult AP courses. It's not about the math level - it has a lot of deep conceptual reasoning that is challenging for younger teen brains. College Board adjusted it to remove a couple of units that were sort of disconnected, so there should be less time pressure next year. It's not a course I would recommend for 9th grade, but Blair does its own thing.

-AP Physics 1 teacher

I asked a Blair counselor about this and they said don't worry about it, the kids they place do well. Do you think this is true for the most part? Any idea why Blair does this?

Because the demographics in Blair (the usual suspects) will take a lot of sh1t from Blair administration and teachers (since they want the LOR for college), and the parents will make up for all the knowledge gaps by teaching everything themselves to their students or by getting them tutoring.

Let me be more clear - the problem with having Asian American students in any classroom is that they will not complain even if the quality of education is craaap. They will quietly take on the burden themselves and sacrifice time, resources, peace of mind, money - to educate their child themselves. The school does not care because on paper their stats look AMAZING and makes them look good. MCPS loves to have Asian American students because they require no effort in teaching. However, they also hate them because they don't want to give them any resources.

When AA or HI or poorer WH kids come to Blair, believing that there is something magical in the air, they are left underperforming because they don't realize that there is zero help from the teachers, and Asian Americans are only doing well because they are killing themselves and their mental health doing the entire hard work at home.

Not at Blair, and don’t agree with the racialized analysis in the PP post, but I do agree that in MCPS high schools there are a plethora of harder classes where the MCPS curriculum and teaching is pretty crappy and middle and upper income parents don’t say anything and just hire a tutor. Classes where this frequently happens are math from Algebra I up, sciences like chem, physics and any harder AP science, and AP Lang and LIt plus some AP history classes.