Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Snark aside, I don’t think you understand my point. I agree that you shouldn’t look at percentages of 5 among all test takers, so lets move away from that argument.

To get an accurate comparison we’d need to find the students taking both BC and statistics and see how the scores differ. We don’t have this data so we need to make some assumptions.

Let’s say we look at the top 5% of students in US, that’s about 200k per grade. Let’s assume further that they all take both Statistics and BC through high school. Of those students 50k get a 5 in BC, but only 30k get a 5 in statistics. You can conclude that it is less likely to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in BC.

For Statistics it is easy to get the basics, but difficult to master the finer points. For Calculus, the basics are harder to grasp, but once you got them, it’s straightforward to apply to more complex situations.

You offer zero support for your substantial assumptions.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

BC students getting a 5: 49544
Stats students getting a 5: 32165

It’s still better than “calculus is for strong students, statistics is for weak students” because my niece said so.

You don’t seem to understand why those stats don’t support your argument.

Let me fix it for you.

You don’t understand why those stats support my argument.

To be fair, you don’t seem to understand even what the stats are or what my argument is.

Just for lolz I’ll try to explain it to you at the 3rd grade level, see if you can follow.

Let N(BC=5) be the number of students getting a 5 in AP Calculus BC exam.
Let N(Stat=5) be the number of students getting a 5 in AP Statistics exam.
Let N be the population size for determining the probability of receiving a 5 in the AP exams.

From the reference shown earlier:
N(BC=5) > N(Stat=5).

Dividing by N, the population size:
N(BC=5)/N > N(Stat=5)/N

The ratios represent the probabilities, P, of a student receiving the highest score:
P(BC=5) > P(Stat=5)

Hence it is less likely for a student to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in Calculus BC, when the probability is calculated for the same population that include all students getting a 5 on either exam.

QED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Snark aside, I don’t think you understand my point. I agree that you shouldn’t look at percentages of 5 among all test takers, so lets move away from that argument.

To get an accurate comparison we’d need to find the students taking both BC and statistics and see how the scores differ. We don’t have this data so we need to make some assumptions.

Let’s say we look at the top 5% of students in US, that’s about 200k per grade. Let’s assume further that they all take both Statistics and BC through high school. Of those students 50k get a 5 in BC, but only 30k get a 5 in statistics. You can conclude that it is less likely to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in BC.

For Statistics it is easy to get the basics, but difficult to master the finer points. For Calculus, the basics are harder to grasp, but once you got them, it’s straightforward to apply to more complex situations.

You offer zero support for your substantial assumptions.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

BC students getting a 5: 49544
Stats students getting a 5: 32165

It’s still better than “calculus is for strong students, statistics is for weak students” because my niece said so.

You don’t seem to understand why those stats don’t support your argument.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

That is EXACTLY why.

Ergo the absolutely weakest students take AP Physics C!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Snark aside, I don’t think you understand my point. I agree that you shouldn’t look at percentages of 5 among all test takers, so lets move away from that argument.

To get an accurate comparison we’d need to find the students taking both BC and statistics and see how the scores differ. We don’t have this data so we need to make some assumptions.

Let’s say we look at the top 5% of students in US, that’s about 200k per grade. Let’s assume further that they all take both Statistics and BC through high school. Of those students 50k get a 5 in BC, but only 30k get a 5 in statistics. You can conclude that it is less likely to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in BC.

For Statistics it is easy to get the basics, but difficult to master the finer points. For Calculus, the basics are harder to grasp, but once you got them, it’s straightforward to apply to more complex situations.

You offer zero support for your substantial assumptions.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

BC students getting a 5: 49544
Stats students getting a 5: 32165

It’s still better than “calculus is for strong students, statistics is for weak students” because my niece said so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Snark aside, I don’t think you understand my point. I agree that you shouldn’t look at percentages of 5 among all test takers, so lets move away from that argument.

To get an accurate comparison we’d need to find the students taking both BC and statistics and see how the scores differ. We don’t have this data so we need to make some assumptions.

Let’s say we look at the top 5% of students in US, that’s about 200k per grade. Let’s assume further that they all take both Statistics and BC through high school. Of those students 50k get a 5 in BC, but only 30k get a 5 in statistics. You can conclude that it is less likely to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in BC.

For Statistics it is easy to get the basics, but difficult to master the finer points. For Calculus, the basics are harder to grasp, but once you got them, it’s straightforward to apply to more complex situations.

You offer zero support for your substantial assumptions.

Anonymous wrote:A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Snark aside, I don’t think you understand my point. I agree that you shouldn’t look at percentages of 5 among all test takers, so lets move away from that argument.

To get an accurate comparison we’d need to find the students taking both BC and statistics and see how the scores differ. We don’t have this data so we need to make some assumptions.

Let’s say we look at the top 5% of students in US, that’s about 200k per grade. Let’s assume further that they all take both Statistics and BC through high school. Of those students 50k get a 5 in BC, but only 30k get a 5 in statistics. You can conclude that it is less likely to get a 5 in Statistics than a 5 in BC.

For Statistics it is easy to get the basics, but difficult to master the finer points. For Calculus, the basics are harder to grasp, but once you got them, it’s straightforward to apply to more complex situations.

A far higher percentage of kids taking Calc BC exam get 5s than of those taking AB do. Same with Physics C than Physics 1. If you conclude from this that BC is easier than AB and C easier than 1, you yourself need to go back to school and take AP Stats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

That is EXACTLY why.

+1

HS math teacher here. Kids who find Honors Precalc too challenging typically jump off the calculus train the next year and take AP Statistics because they think it’ll be “easier” than continuing with Calculus. The stronger math students stay in calculus. And the strongest math students manage to double up to fit in AP Statistics (often in 10th grade), so a lot of those 5s are kids who will also take Calculus.

Try to look at the data and see if it makes sense. We’re not talking about the kids that find math challenging, we’re talking about the kids getting a 5. How often do you see a strong math student with a 5 in BC not taking AP Statistics? If it’s a significant overlap, for those top students, it’s more likely they’ll get a 5 in BC than a 5 in Statistics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

That is EXACTLY why.

But if it’s so easy to get a 5 in AP Statistics why are so fewer students getting it compared to those getting a 5 in BC or AB? I’d guess that most students in BC also take AP Statistics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

That is EXACTLY why.

+1

HS math teacher here. Kids who find Honors Precalc too challenging typically jump off the calculus train the next year and take AP Statistics because they think it’ll be “easier” than continuing with Calculus. The stronger math students stay in calculus. And the strongest math students manage to double up to fit in AP Statistics (often in 10th grade), so a lot of those 5s are kids who will also take Calculus.

Anonymous wrote:If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

That is EXACTLY why.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The colleges aren’t generally requiring calculus. It’s whether it’s a factor in admissions. It has been a bit a bit of a litmus test at some places but I think that’s changing and colleges are increasingly seeing the value of Stats for non-Stem majors. But it’s silly and misleading to point to the minimum requirements for a place like Harvard and pretend calc doesn’t matter. BC will likely tell you they want Calc while BU says Stats is fine. But we don’t know whether Calc will still look better than Stats at BU. Wesleyan still brags about percentage of entering class who took calc (and all three core sciences).
This is a hot button issue in admissions and raises equity concerns (half of US high schools don’t even offer calculus!).

https://feed.georgetown.edu/access-affordability/the-case-for-de-emphasizing-calculus-in-college-admissions/#:~:text=Author%20Jeffrey%20Selingo%2C%20who%20wrote,for%20students%20who%20challenge%20themselves.”

Supposedly colleges look at the transcript to check if kids are taking the most challenging classes. That's why I think it's short sighted of parents to push kids ahead to Calc AB in 11th then stats in 12th. I'd be willing to bet most colleges will be looking for Calc BC if it is offered.

It’s not obvious to me that AP Calculus BC is 12th is automatically better than AP Calculus AB in 11th and AP Statistics in 12th. I’d think on the contrary.

If we compare the difficulty of AP Statistics vs AP calculus it’s worth looking at the score distributions:

AP Calculus AB, 270000 take it, 55000 get a 5
AP Calculus BC, 120000 take it, 50000 get a 5
AP Statistics, 220000 take it, 32000 get a 5

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-score-distributions-by-subject-2022.pdf

It’s significantly harder to get a 5 in Statistics, and it’s not because weaker students take it.

[quote=Anonymous]The colleges aren’t generally requiring calculus. It’s whether it’s a factor in admissions. It has been a bit a bit of a litmus test at some places but I think that’s changing and colleges are increasingly seeing the value of Stats for non-Stem majors. But it’s silly and misleading to point to the minimum requirements for a place like Harvard and pretend calc doesn’t matter. BC will likely tell you they want Calc while BU says Stats is fine. But we don’t know whether Calc will still look better than Stats at BU. Wesleyan still brags about percentage of entering class who took calc (and all three core sciences).
This is a hot button issue in admissions and raises equity concerns (half of US high schools don’t even offer calculus!).

https://feed.georgetown.edu/access-affordability/the-case-for-de-emphasizing-calculus-in-college-admissions/#:~:text=Author%20Jeffrey%20Selingo%2C%20who%20wrote,for%20students%20who%20challenge%20themselves.”[/quote]

It’s also silly to claim colleges will flat out reject you if your top math class is AP statistics. If Harvard admissions puts out a document that said they give advanced classes equal consideration, let’s assume they are not saying that to mislead the public. These are not minimum requirements, it describes their approach in evaluating candidates.

For the typical student oriented towards STEM it does mean they should take AP Calculus BC if offered, along with AP Statistics and other advanced classes the school has, because they need to take the most challenging workload in their area of interest. Kid focusing on humanities may not need to take the same classes in math.

Anonymous wrote:The colleges aren’t generally requiring calculus. It’s whether it’s a factor in admissions. It has been a bit a bit of a litmus test at some places but I think that’s changing and colleges are increasingly seeing the value of Stats for non-Stem majors. But it’s silly and misleading to point to the minimum requirements for a place like Harvard and pretend calc doesn’t matter. BC will likely tell you they want Calc while BU says Stats is fine. But we don’t know whether Calc will still look better than Stats at BU. Wesleyan still brags about percentage of entering class who took calc (and all three core sciences).
This is a hot button issue in admissions and raises equity concerns (half of US high schools don’t even offer calculus!).

https://feed.georgetown.edu/access-affordability/the-case-for-de-emphasizing-calculus-in-college-admissions/#:~:text=Author%20Jeffrey%20Selingo%2C%20who%20wrote,for%20students%20who%20challenge%20themselves.”

Supposedly colleges look at the transcript to check if kids are taking the most challenging classes. That's why I think it's short sighted of parents to push kids ahead to Calc AB in 11th then stats in 12th. I'd be willing to bet most colleges will be looking for Calc BC if it is offered.