One thing about high school you can say was good for you when you leave are AP (Advanced Placement) classes. The regular classes offered in high school are there for teachers to baby sit teenagers and to distract them from talking by giving them work that doesn’t really require them to think, just look in the book to get the answers or wait for the teacher to say the answers. AP classes make it a daily routine for you to get readings done on time, to do hours of h.w. daily, to understand and study what’s being taught as it’s being taught, and most importantly to teach you how to manage your time. A lot of teenagers tend to think that there’s too many hours in a day, but in reality, there’s too little hours in a day especially when you start college. The loads of h.w. will overwhelm you if you go into it blindly, unprepared.
AP classes separate you from the kids who don’t care about their education and the environment in an AP class is more encouraging with the stress you see the teacher develop a month before the AP tests, showing that they care. Encouragement also comes from other students because they’re busting their a$$e$, staying up late to finish their work and study like you are. Everyone’s in it together, it just takes the individual student’s drive to join the “together.”
In case some of you don’t know what AP classes and their tests could do for you, the tests are taken every May, the class itself counts for an extra point toward your G.P.A. (that’s how some people get over 4.0s) and if you get at least a 3 on your test (3, 4, and 5 are passing) you get college credit meaning that you won’t have to take and pay for that class in college. One less class means a shorter time to graduate.
Taking AP classes is challenging, but once you see your passing score you’ll be happy that you had miserable sleepless nights during the school year because it was well worth it. Believe me. I was so proud of myself and I couldn’t get over how my hard work paid off for like a week.
A little advice though, stick only to two AP classes a year because two could definitely be handled, but three or four, you’ll be dropping by the end of the first semester. With two, you’ll end up doing h.w. all weekend because during the week you’re struggling to finish the h.w. for your other classes, but you’ll get through it if I did.
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I agree with you that APs are an essential part of a high school education but I completely disagree about the other classes. I'm a high school senior and I'm taking both AP english and AP government along with the regular placement math, physics and economics. While my course load for my APs is obviously more rigorous, I'm hardly just sitting in my other classes while my teachers feed me information. I would even say that physics is harder for me than AP english. While there's less outside work, the material is harder for me to grasp. What I'm saying is it's not fair to group all non-AP classes together as wastes of time. For instance, my economics class is taught by the same person who teaches my AP government class. Just thought I'd weigh in with my thoughts....
Agree for the most part. I as well am a high school senior taking AP Government (I also have Eng12 reg., Physics, Chem.2honors, Stats/Discrete, band & of course I was smart enough to get a study hall in). AP definatly takes up A LOT of your time. As a matter of fact I'm sitting here doing my gov. h/w and it is currently 12:30am for me. I took regular English12 b/c I knew that I would have a heavy work load with the rest of my classes and needed something easy. Like Sammilue said [above comment], regular Physics class alone is tough to understand. It requires a lot of algebra skills, which I definatly lack in. It involves so much thinking that it actually gives me headaches in class lol. I hope I can surive this year is all I have to say lol.
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"Love is like a war. It's easy to start, hard to stop, and impossible to forget."
I took three AP classes in my senior year: AP Calculus, AP U.S. History and AP Physics. lol That was hell but I did well on the exams in my opinion. Anyway, AP exams and even SATs tests are nothing more than a business to me. It's an education business system that was set up by the colleges and the test providers company. Why else do they have kids pay for them? It should be free God damn it! Just because it can be considered as College credit, that doesn't mean they should charge us. Anyway, thank god my high school time is over. This feels great...as if I just got out from jail.
AP's are sort of like a business, but i think they help students grow into adults. They see the responsiblity they must have to do well in school and that motivates them to do well in the future.
Ap is good but not all colleges accept the credit. Anoter good option is CIS (College in the Schools) There is no test the grade you get in the class is the grade you really get on your highschool transcript and your college transcript.
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