4 ms·

You've got it backwards: the students who studied honestly had much better retention after two weeks than the kids who wasted time trying to cheat or game the

by dkarl 16y ago

You've got it backwards: the students who studied honestly had much better retention after two weeks than the kids who wasted time trying to cheat or game the test. It was the teacher's intention to reward honest work by giving the hard-working kids a big advantage over the cheaters, and that's exactly what he accomplished. If only life was always so fair!

skinnymuch 16y ago
Your explanation is for a fantasy-land. Studying honestly in many AP classes comes down to cramming. Here's how Semiapies summed it up in a comment in this thread: "In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about. (If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final exams built around remembering everything from the whole course.)" -- It's not like the crammers are even bad kids. A lot of them have no choice because if they didn't study that way they wouldn't have enough time to study and will end up getting worse grades. This would mainly show people that the world screws you over and people who are part of crappy systems will go ahead and screw you over on top of the crappy system. I see little fairness in this situation.
- dkarl 16y ago
  Semiapies' description of AP classes is really bizarre and can only reflect a situation in which the teachers did not give a rat's ass about their students' AP scores. The nice thing about an AP class versus a non-AP class is that the AP test gives teachers an excuse to care whether their students are actually learning or not. Naturally that means the kids end up working a lot harder, but teachers who care at all about the scores at the end of the year (and mine did) will do everything they can to discourage cramming and other fake learning. Kids who can't pass the class without cramming and who aren't going to retain the material shouldn't be in an AP class in the first place. They're going to run into a concrete wall at the end and waste their money (or the school's money) taking a test they aren't prepared for. Some students can handle it, and that's who the class is for. In my graduating class, there were maybe a dozen kids who got a 5 on at least one AP test, and I think there were two dozen who got a 3 on at least one AP test. That's out of a graduating class of a little over 300. (The entering class was over 400, so you can tell I didn't go to an especially good school.)

by dkarl 16y ago

skinnymuch 16y ago

Your explanation is for a fantasy-land. Studying honestly in many AP classes comes down to cramming. Here's how Semiapies summed it up in a comment in this thread: "In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about. (If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final exams built around remembering everything from the whole course.)" -- It's not like the crammers are even bad kids. A lot of them have no choice because if they didn't study that way they wouldn't have enough time to study and will end up getting worse grades. This would mainly show people that the world screws you over and people who are part of crappy systems will go ahead and screw you over on top of the crappy system. I see little fairness in this situation.

dkarl 16y ago
Semiapies' description of AP classes is really bizarre and can only reflect a situation in which the teachers did not give a rat's ass about their students' AP scores. The nice thing about an AP class versus a non-AP class is that the AP test gives teachers an excuse to care whether their students are actually learning or not. Naturally that means the kids end up working a lot harder, but teachers who care at all about the scores at the end of the year (and mine did) will do everything they can to discourage cramming and other fake learning. Kids who can't pass the class without cramming and who aren't going to retain the material shouldn't be in an AP class in the first place. They're going to run into a concrete wall at the end and waste their money (or the school's money) taking a test they aren't prepared for. Some students can handle it, and that's who the class is for. In my graduating class, there were maybe a dozen kids who got a 5 on at least one AP test, and I think there were two dozen who got a 3 on at least one AP test. That's out of a graduating class of a little over 300. (The entering class was over 400, so you can tell I didn't go to an especially good school.)