AP Discussion Thread!

Not sure if this is in the right place, sorry if it isn't...

Anywho, I am sure that plenty of you high school students and previously high school students are taking/have taken AP courses. Now, these courses can be stressful. Some are really fun, some cause you to pull out your hair, some make you wish you had never taken them. I thought a thread like this would be utilitarian to high school students, as well as any middle school students who maybe want to plan far ahead (not how I did things, but hey, to each his own). So here we can discuss results, pros and cons of certain courses, complain, laugh, freak out five days before the exam, share words of wisdom (or caution... ), and blah.

This year I am signed up for AP Biology and AP United States History. Wooo. We have a good and fun teacher for biology so I am hoping that the course won't be too stressful. I have no clue what I'm in for with APUSH though :/ Bleh. So, talks away!

I took AP Language and AP Biology in high school. My bio teacher was trying to manage teaching two AP courses at the same time, had family problems, and basically a nervous break down. A very small amount of people passed the AP test at the end, not including me unfortunately, although that is a combination of her pitiful teaching and my bad study habits.

The labs can get annoying if you and your partners do something wrong and it utterly fails. That was one of my biggest problems with the class.

I took several AP classes in high school. I was in the honors program, so they required us to take certain AP classes - which were European History, American History, Writing, and Literature. I didn't think they were that bad.

The history ones were a lot of work, but it was all memorization so there were no problems if you just studied the facts. Plus, my teachers were really cool. They were really silly and joked with us all the time, so they made the classes fun. I got a 3 on Euro and a 4 on American, so that allowed me to be exempt from taking any history in college. :) I was very happy about that since history is not one of my favorite subjects. I got 4's in both English classes..my writing teacher was the best!

Voluntarily, I took AP Italian, Chemistry, and Calculus. I loved calculus! I had a wonderful teacher who taught us well and I really liked the subject itself. I got a 5 on the test, so that also allowed me to not have to take any math in college.

As for Italian and Chemistry, my teachers in those subjects were pretty bad. :/ I got perfect scores in their classes and on their exams, but they prepared us horribly for the AP exam itself. I got 2's on both of those because of how badly we were prepared. I just missed getting a 3 on the chemistry one, which was annoying.

The good thing about the chemistry class was that it gave me a good foundation for my college inorganic chemistry. With how lousy my AP chem teacher taught, I would never have felt good about going directly into organic chemistry. So at least what she actually DID teach us in the AP class helped me significantly in inorganic. A lot of my classmates struggled, but I felt like the college chemistry class was a review for me.

But I'd say my Italian teacher was even worse than the chemistry one. She was a really nice lady, but I was far from fluent after three years of taking her class, in which the last one was AP. All she liked to do was tell us crazy stories, like when she tried pot one time or talk about how "sex is not all it's cracked up to be" and show us perverted nudie Italian films, then tell us "the fact that there's nudity is neither here nor there". Yeah, it was a weird class.

Of course I had to take a few AP classes in High School.

I was required to take AP German still have to as well. Heh I cheated the whole time. But it was very fun, I got to atleast talk to the other students who were close to speaking German correctly. :3

I am going to take AP Physics,I don't kow how bad this will be because I don't know nothing about Physics. x] (I did take AP Biology and Chemistry, both teachers did not know how to teach)

I've done AP English, boy, I ain't doing that again. (along with History as well)

And I'm going to take AP Art and Cacuilus this year. Oh goodie.

I just got my results back from AP Euro, I got a 5 The class is NOT impossible, as I had several juniors tell me last year. It does require quite a bit of works. I would not recommend taking any AP history if you do not have a good memory or if you can't write under pressure. On a DBQ (Document Based Question), the number one thing to remember is POV. A lot of AP Euro teachers do not teach these properly (mine did, I was lucky to have an amazing teacher). A large majority of students forget POV and mess up their DBQs, which are worth twice as much as the FRQs (Free- Response Question). Remember that as well.

Overall, AP Euro was an extremely interesting class and I would recommend it to anybody who loves learning.

Next year I am taking APUSH and AP Composition. Any advice?

I took 7 AP exams during high school: European History (5), US History (5), Biology (4 - joke's on me, my college only accepts 5's on the Bio exam), Composition/Language (5), Literature (5), Physics B (4), and Music Theory (4). A good portion of my Gen Ed requirements in college will already be fulfilled when I start this year.

Overall, the only exams I really worried about were my Physics and Music Theory exams this year. Physics because our teacher had a difficult teaching style (though I can't say it was bad, honestly), and Music Theory just because the exam itself was ffffing difficult. Literature is a bit of a wild card, depending on whether or not the list of novels they give you in the writing section matches up with your curriculum for the year (Crime and Punishment seems to get a lot of love on the exam, though).

My school doesn't have any programs that require AP-level classes, unless you were already taking high-level classes and you had nowhere else to go. The exams were entirely voluntary even if you were in an AP-level class.

Originally Posted by Willow-chan

But I'd say my Italian teacher was even worse than the chemistry one. She was a really nice lady, but I was far from fluent after three years of taking her class, in which the last one was AP. All she liked to do was tell us crazy stories, like when she tried pot one time or talk about how "sex is not all it's cracked up to be" and show us perverted nudie Italian films, then tell us "the fact that there's nudity is neither here nor there". Yeah, it was a weird class.

That reminds me of my German class. Good times?

Originally Posted by love to play zelda:D

Next year I am taking APUSH and AP Composition. Any advice?

US History is similar to AP Euro (besides the obvious change in location). Most of the advice for one applies to the other, and the writing section is divided by time period, too (Colonialism to Pre-Civil War, then the Civil War and afterwards). There's also a DBQ, but I trust you're familiar with that one, now.

AP Comp isn't bad at all, really. The reading section is relatively simple, and the writing section is... manageable. The free-response prompt is the most difficult because you'll be forced to BS your way through if it's about a topic you can't relate to. If you have a lot of general knowledge and background information, though, it shouldn't be a huge problem. There's also usually a synthesis prompt, which is pretty much another name for a DBQ, so no real surprises there. You also have to analyze a speech/document excerpt, which is fairly straightforward. If the prompt asks you to analyze specific techniques that are in the passage, you should stick to those: I actually don't know if it would hurt your score in any way if you didn't, but better safe than sorry.

oh look there i used a lot of words

I took AP European History and AP Music Theory, and I started AP Economics but I backed out of it (it was hard, and I wasn't doing well in it, and I needed to be eligible for marching band.). Funny thing is, I switched to regular economics with the same teacher and it was the easiest class ever...

I loved AP European History. It's a great subject, and I had an amazing teacher.

AP Music Theory made me feel like a failure at life, though. In high school I had no understanding of music theory, and I really was confused by it. My teacher even pulled me aside and basically said "How in the world do you expect to be a music major?" Music Theory in college was fun and it clicked for me there. It's just that I never signed up for AP Music Theory, I got stuck in there because I was a senior. I signed up for regular Music Theory, because I knew that I knew nothing about it. I don't know what that was all about. Oh well. It's long over now. .

Thinking back on it, I should have taken AP writing classes. My high school writing classes prepared me for nothing. The teachers were nice, but my papers were graded like I was in elementary school. I was not prepared at all when I got into Comp I and all of the sudden my papers weren't graded for completion.

I took a few AP classes in high school, but foolishly never took any AP exams. Oh well.

AP Euro, APUSH (however dropped out because it was too boring), AP psychology, AP bio and AP calculus in senior year. Psychology was by far the best AP class I ever took. Recommend it to anyone.

Originally Posted by Mado Dark

That reminds me of my German class. Good times?

Haha, yeah the class was pretty entertaining. XD But at the same time, I resented that I spent three years in the class and she basically retaught us the same thing every year - conjugating the same basic "ARE" verbs, "ERE" verbs, " and "IRE" verbs, barely touching upon irregular verbs. It was literally the same identical curriculum repeating each year. D:

I can't complain that it wasn't easy, but I did want to learn the language too. :/

Sophomore year: European History and Art History (5, 4). teachers were fantastic and hilarious.

This year: US History, Biology, Physics B, Language and Literature (5, 2, 3, 5, 5)
terrible mistake taking bio and physics in the same year. terrible terrible terrible. didn't take regular bio as a freshman, come into the class wondering what the ♥♥♥♥ a lysosome is. class consisted of sitting there and watching a slideshow every day. physics teacher overworked us and tried to teach us electricity and magnetism two weeks before the exam.

Self-studied for AP Lit so i was happy about that

Next year looks like: Calc AB, German, Psychology, and US Government. possibly Environmental Science.