Wednesday, April 04, 2007
AP Spring Break Assignment
The link to the AP exam question part of the assignment is properly associated, now. ALSO, don't forget your individual project KARMA assignments.
I will post the questions and solutions to all of the past AP exam homework questions so that you can check your answers and/or methods; that should help you with the vacation assignment.
Note: You will be the new guinea pigs for the slight format change in the 2007 AP Chem exam. By the way, the next major AP Chem overhaul will occur in 2010 and will actually ALTER the curriculum! I can see it now: no Bonding unit (too hard), no stoichiometry (too much math!), no quantum (too "physics-y").
The new exam FORMAT, which tests the same content as has been tested since MO theory (too close to reality) was dropped, will weight the multiple choice Part I and the written response Part II (A and B) at 50% each towards your final score. The weighting HAD been 45% of the multiple choice score and 55% of the written response score. No big deal and maybe even good news for us because I have never heard any of my former students complain or worry about the multiple choice part of the exam after they sat for the test. That section has 75 questions in 90 minutes and almost all of my former students completed that section on time whereas most students don't make it through two-thirds of the questions. Obviously, we will be practicing MC test-taking skills when you all get back. Those few who have made it to the "5-Steps" review sessions already know the importance of rounding, estimation, and selectivity on the multiple-choice section.
The "big" change is that you will now have only six part II questions. Formerly, there were eight total part II questions from which students would HAVE to answer questions 1,4,5, and 6 but would choose to answer either question 2 or 3 and then answer either question 7 or 8, for a total of six part II questions.
Since the collegeboard has taken away choice in part II, you can expect the questions to cover more than one topic per multi-part question. Multiple topics per question is NOT NEW; however, now there will just be probably two more questions that contain multiple topics. So, for example, your question 6 may start with periodic trends and then go on to bonding; question 2 may start with kinetics and go on to stoichiometry and colligative properties. Big deal.
On your vacation assignment, you will be answering ALL of the questions anyway. MAKE SURE that you do whatever questions you can IN THE ALLOTTED time. Then, if you have not already done so, go on to finish the test. Practicing WITH time pressure is crazy crucial at this point. Even at this point, question 4 (descriptive chem) should take you NO MORE than eight minutes (on a slow day!). Oh yes, starting this year, all equations MUST be balanced; that is also not a bad thing since balancing the equation is a self-check on the feasibility of your predicted products.
Before you start the assignment, you should look over your course notes and past exams for an hour or so. You should begin these tests with at least a partially refreshed and updated memory.
Bon chance, all.
I will post the questions and solutions to all of the past AP exam homework questions so that you can check your answers and/or methods; that should help you with the vacation assignment.
Note: You will be the new guinea pigs for the slight format change in the 2007 AP Chem exam. By the way, the next major AP Chem overhaul will occur in 2010 and will actually ALTER the curriculum! I can see it now: no Bonding unit (too hard), no stoichiometry (too much math!), no quantum (too "physics-y").
The new exam FORMAT, which tests the same content as has been tested since MO theory (too close to reality) was dropped, will weight the multiple choice Part I and the written response Part II (A and B) at 50% each towards your final score. The weighting HAD been 45% of the multiple choice score and 55% of the written response score. No big deal and maybe even good news for us because I have never heard any of my former students complain or worry about the multiple choice part of the exam after they sat for the test. That section has 75 questions in 90 minutes and almost all of my former students completed that section on time whereas most students don't make it through two-thirds of the questions. Obviously, we will be practicing MC test-taking skills when you all get back. Those few who have made it to the "5-Steps" review sessions already know the importance of rounding, estimation, and selectivity on the multiple-choice section.
The "big" change is that you will now have only six part II questions. Formerly, there were eight total part II questions from which students would HAVE to answer questions 1,4,5, and 6 but would choose to answer either question 2 or 3 and then answer either question 7 or 8, for a total of six part II questions.
Since the collegeboard has taken away choice in part II, you can expect the questions to cover more than one topic per multi-part question. Multiple topics per question is NOT NEW; however, now there will just be probably two more questions that contain multiple topics. So, for example, your question 6 may start with periodic trends and then go on to bonding; question 2 may start with kinetics and go on to stoichiometry and colligative properties. Big deal.
On your vacation assignment, you will be answering ALL of the questions anyway. MAKE SURE that you do whatever questions you can IN THE ALLOTTED time. Then, if you have not already done so, go on to finish the test. Practicing WITH time pressure is crazy crucial at this point. Even at this point, question 4 (descriptive chem) should take you NO MORE than eight minutes (on a slow day!). Oh yes, starting this year, all equations MUST be balanced; that is also not a bad thing since balancing the equation is a self-check on the feasibility of your predicted products.
Before you start the assignment, you should look over your course notes and past exams for an hour or so. You should begin these tests with at least a partially refreshed and updated memory.
Bon chance, all.
# posted by C @ 7:53 PM 
