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Plain old Bio b/c he ended up with a final grade of a B in his 9th grade science class and wasn't recommended or approved for Honors or AP. In hindsight I should have pushed for him to be in the Honors Bio class because he loves biology and did great in 8th grade (Middle School Bio), and the ⅓ of his 9th grade science class that covered Biology he did excellent in as well. The Physics and Chem 2/3rds, not so much.
His 1st quarter grade for Bio was an A+ (point avg was 103 & he was the only kid in all of "10th grade regular Bio" to pass a very hard chapter test with 100%….according to his teacher's comments on his report card). His teacher contacted me and suggested he take a shot at the AP Bio exam in May & gave him the form to fill out before winter break. His advisor followed up and suggested that I get him an AP Bio Test prep book to start studying from. Of course I would.
My 10th grader and I sat down together the other night and looked at free sample Bio AP tests available on the internet.
No WAY could he take the AP exam. I'm now kind of surprised his Bio teacher even suggested it!
Are AP classes taught to cover the test material? Or are they just overall more in depth, cover more details & taught at a faster pace? A combo of both?
I was pretty much a straight B student, so I never took an AP class in HS and have no idea.
I really have no idea what the quality of his school's regular and honors biology classes are like. Doing well numerically in the regular bio class tells me nothing about the real quality of the curriculum relative to the AP course. But it sounds like there's a pretty wide gap based on the reaction to the test prep book. I'm also a little surprised his teacher suggested this, but maybe she saw potential in him.
Optimally an AP course would teach for the test, because doing well on the test is essentially the point of the course. It would be nice if teachers could have more personal freedom when it comes to planning the curriculum, but at the end of the day everyone wants the kids to score well. The intensity of an AP course is meant to approximate that of a college course, so yeah, it would be more in depth/cover more details/be taught more quickly.
Your son could take the test, but I don't anticipate him doing so well without having taken the course. Even so, I know a lot of AP classes in the country don't even adequately prepare students for the tests. Colleges usually want a score of 3 or more to give credit (and 4 or 5 for the better schools), but average scores nationwide can be around 2 or 3. But at the least, college admissions do like to see students doing AP in the first place.
Disclaimer: I didn't take AP Bio but I took a number of other AP courses.
While there are some AP tests that can be taken by studying the book on ones own, I don't think AP bio is one of them. I've never heard of a student that just took a regular Bio course taking it, just the ones that took the course.
I would push to have him placed in AP Bio next year and sit for the exam then at the end of that year, as well as the SAT subject test in Bio. The exams fall less than a month apart. If you are going to put the effort into studying for one, you might as well do both.
I don't know what your school schedule is like, but the 2015 AP Bio exam is being administered May 11. For most schools, that is several weeks before the end of regular classes. Therefore, your student will not have even finished the material in the regular high school course and will not have the benefit of any review the teacher does there before taking the AP exam. AP courses are geared towards the exam date. Material is compressed and they do a review and a number of practice essays and tests before the real test. If you son has a talent and interest in this area, there's a good chance he could get a 4 or 5 on the exam with that kind of preparation, but on his own, without the benefit of an additional year covering the material that appears on the exam, I think he will fare much worse.
Are AP classes taught to cover the test material? Or are they just overall more in depth, cover more details & taught at a faster pace? A combo of both?
It depends on the teacher. My kids took a number of AP courses. I remember the AP US History teacher saying at "Back to School" night, "Do I teach to the test? You bet I do!" Now in a history course there is so much information to cover that it makes sense to cover what is actually going to be tested, which is what he meant.
If the bio teacher thinks your son could handle this course, you/he might consider it. The teachers are familiar with course content and how a course is taught in their school.
In our district, only AP Bio students can take the AP Bio test.
Does he plan on taking AP Bio? IF so, wait until later to take the test. Taking it without would probably be frustrating and a waste of time & money.
I agree. I can not imagine a HS teacher recommending that he take the test without taking the AP course.
To my knowledge even the best of the top students (such as the valedictorian) in my area did not take any AP exams without taking the courses.
OP. are you sure that the teacher was not just recommending that your son take AP biology in the future and not just take the AP exam next May?
I agree. I can not imagine a HS teacher recommending that he take the test without taking the AP course.
To my knowledge even the best of the top students (such as the valedictorian) in my area did not take any AP exams without taking the courses.
OP. are you sure that the teacher was not just recommending that your son take AP biology in the future and not just take the AP exam next May?
If the College Board is reading this they would accuse you negative posters of attempting to deny the student an opportunity to excel and are acting as gatekeepers to achievement.
If your student was not able to do Honors, unless he had a really bad day that kept him out, it would be a waste of time and $89 for him to take the exam without the course.
The AP Bio exam is incredibly detail oriented and incorporates knowledge gained from the 22 recommended (meaning required) labs done during the course.
I would imagine, agreeing with others, that the teacher told him to take the class and he may have misheard it, especially of the teacher was also talking about the exam.
Just make sure he doesn't have that AP Bio teacher who gets pissed off at the kids in October and has them do nothing but take notes from Powerpoint the rest of the year. Yes, that happened. He's now held up as a Master Teacher and is getting National Certification. He only had one kid who got higher than a 1 on the exam and that was a kid who is so smart he's scary. He also stopped going to the class and read the book since he wasn't learning anything in the class.
^^That was my assumption in reading the OP, too, that the teacher was recommending the student take the course. That was the basis for my advice; if the teacher thinks he can do it, consider it.
Plain old Bio b/c he ended up with a final grade of a B in his 9th grade science class and wasn't recommended or approved for Honors or AP. In hindsight I should have pushed for him to be in the Honors Bio class because he loves biology and did great in 8th grade (Middle School Bio), and the ⅓ of his 9th grade science class that covered Biology he did excellent in as well. The Physics and Chem 2/3rds, not so much.
His 1st quarter grade for Bio was an A+ (point avg was 103 & he was the only kid in all of "10th grade regular Bio" to pass a very hard chapter test with 100%….according to his teacher's comments on his report card). His teacher contacted me and suggested he take a shot at the AP Bio exam in May & gave him the form to fill out before winter break. His advisor followed up and suggested that I get him an AP Bio Test prep book to start studying from. Of course I would.
My 10th grader and I sat down together the other night and looked at free sample Bio AP tests available on the internet.
No WAY could he take the AP exam. I'm now kind of surprised his Bio teacher even suggested it!
Are AP classes taught to cover the test material? Or are they just overall more in depth, cover more details & taught at a faster pace? A combo of both?
I was pretty much a straight B student, so I never took an AP class in HS and have no idea.
You can buy him the Princeton Review book to study for the exam but I don't recommend a student self study for AP Biology.
My kids took AP exams where the course was intended to prepare students to take the AP exam. They cover the material that is actually tested and they cover the material in a short period of time. Most of the time they are done with the course material in March and spend all of April reviewing for the exam.
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