Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Facts of AP
Our Kinetics exam is on Day 4, as usual. This exam will be the first grade of the THIRD quarter. The second quarter grades are over with the exception of a couple of students who did not return their ligand-complex quiz grade to me as requested. Please do so on Monday.
Only four students in our small class are on track for a 5 on the AP exam, three are tracking for a 4 and the rest will get a 3 or lower. This prediction is not based on "FEELING" but on concrete evidence from past students' scores/performance at this point in the course. I always hope that you would ALL put in the time and effort to get a 5 on this exam; you have to be very honest with yourself and change what you have been doing if you are not yet achieving that goal, which is COMPLETELY equivalent to actually learning AP Chemistry. If you are not succeeding and you cannot/will not change, then the rest of this course will surely lower your average further. Again, these are just the facts.
Don't ever forget, I am after school EVERY DAY to help YOU review tests/ hw/ lecture/ do practice tests, etc. (until the LATE buses leave on most days). Also, you can email me questions. That is all I can do, I think.
The next four units will account for half of your AP score; the three extensive equilibrium units are the MOST challenging units of the course and we begin the first of those units this week.
In this course, the third quarter is even more work-intensive than the previous two. The fourth quarter grades are determined by your work over the course of only three weeks! Then, you take the AP exam (May 10, 2006). Most of your grade for that quarter is based on doing an ENTIRE part II AP exam PER NIGHT! The rest of your fourth quarter grade is based on a final exam which you take soon after the AP exam. If you do not have a solid base of knowledge from the first three quarters (by going to extra help to correct and understand what you did not get the first time around), the fourth quarter will net you the most work with the worst results. If you have a lot of other commitments that quarter, you will not be able to keep up with the requirements of this course unless it is your top priority. Typically, students who did poorly the first two quarters do much worse the last two quarters (most of those students fail - in the 50's- the fourth quarter). I would hope that those students would avoid that outcome this year. Again, just the facts.
We will start the review book "5 Steps to a 5" review sessions this week (day to be announced tomorrow) with a floating day schedule in upcoming weeks.
Only four students in our small class are on track for a 5 on the AP exam, three are tracking for a 4 and the rest will get a 3 or lower. This prediction is not based on "FEELING" but on concrete evidence from past students' scores/performance at this point in the course. I always hope that you would ALL put in the time and effort to get a 5 on this exam; you have to be very honest with yourself and change what you have been doing if you are not yet achieving that goal, which is COMPLETELY equivalent to actually learning AP Chemistry. If you are not succeeding and you cannot/will not change, then the rest of this course will surely lower your average further. Again, these are just the facts.
Don't ever forget, I am after school EVERY DAY to help YOU review tests/ hw/ lecture/ do practice tests, etc. (until the LATE buses leave on most days). Also, you can email me questions. That is all I can do, I think.
The next four units will account for half of your AP score; the three extensive equilibrium units are the MOST challenging units of the course and we begin the first of those units this week.
In this course, the third quarter is even more work-intensive than the previous two. The fourth quarter grades are determined by your work over the course of only three weeks! Then, you take the AP exam (May 10, 2006). Most of your grade for that quarter is based on doing an ENTIRE part II AP exam PER NIGHT! The rest of your fourth quarter grade is based on a final exam which you take soon after the AP exam. If you do not have a solid base of knowledge from the first three quarters (by going to extra help to correct and understand what you did not get the first time around), the fourth quarter will net you the most work with the worst results. If you have a lot of other commitments that quarter, you will not be able to keep up with the requirements of this course unless it is your top priority. Typically, students who did poorly the first two quarters do much worse the last two quarters (most of those students fail - in the 50's- the fourth quarter). I would hope that those students would avoid that outcome this year. Again, just the facts.
We will start the review book "5 Steps to a 5" review sessions this week (day to be announced tomorrow) with a floating day schedule in upcoming weeks.
# posted by C @ 2:38 PM 
