What kind of students are suitable for learning AP?
In the United States, the students who apply for AP courses are mostly students with certain academic advantages and good development in all aspects, and they are concentrated in the students in grades 10 to 12. Generally speaking, students must have an average GPA of 80 or above to prepare for AP courses. About half of the 20 students in a class in an American high school will take this exam. Some students will take 6 or 7 AP courses in high school, and many will reach 8 or 9 courses.
AP course is also suitable for domestic students who plan to go abroad. AP course has a wide range of knowledge and intensive knowledge points, which requires coherent and systematic learning. A good AP report card can not only expose domestic high school students to relevant courses in American universities in advance, but also serve as a stepping stone to enter top schools such as Harvard and Yale. However, judging from the results of the application, the level of students applying for the examination is uneven. Students majoring in science have an advantage over American students in AP courses, get better grades in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and get credits easily. Some students take American history and culture courses, but in fact they can't get good grades. For example, some prestigious schools require 5 points for admission, but actually they can only get 3 points.
Therefore, there will be great differences between China students and American students in choosing elective subjects. In the future, students majoring in science and engineering have obvious advantages in learning AP courses, which can be attributed to three reasons:
1. Need to adapt to professional courses, which is related to the recognition of prestigious schools;
2. Domestic students have a relatively good foundation in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and it is easier to get points in the exam after completing these courses;
3. These courses are relatively basic courses, which will appear in both business and engineering, with a wide range of docking.
But not absolutely. Here are some suggestions from AP and application, the relationship between AP and university study, and how to prepare for AP.
How good is AP to the application?
The role of AP score is just icing on the cake! The role of AP score is just icing on the cake! The role of AP score is just icing on the cake!
The "foundation" is your usual academic performance (GPA) and other abilities such as language (TOEFL SAT, etc. ). If there is no problem with your GPA and standardized scores, it is naturally helpful for you to take several AP courses to prove your learning ability; If you don't even lay a good foundation, blindly going to a higher AP course in this case is nothing more than putting the cart before the horse, which is often time-consuming and laborious but half the effort. In addition, for students who have already taken international courses such as IB and A-level, there is no need to study AP in the same subject, because the usual scores of IB and A-level are enough to prove to the university that you are equivalent to AP's learning ability.
Compared with AP test scores, college admissions officers pay more attention to AP course learning.
In essence, AP course is a freshman course, which is far more difficult than ordinary courses in middle schools. Therefore, whether students take AP courses or not and how many AP courses they take can reflect whether students have the confidence and ability to challenge themselves. Attention! ! Compared with the results of one-time AP exam, American universities pay more attention to students' process performance, that is, AP course learning. However, universities attach importance to AP course scores in enrollment, which is not directly reflected, but indirectly attaches importance to AP course scores that have a significant impact on students by attaching importance to their GPA scores.
Is AP related to the academic performance of American universities?
According to years of experience, Bill Fitzsimmons, director of the Admissions Office of Harvard University, also clearly pointed out in "The Best Predictor of Success in Harvard is Ap and Ap Achievement". "The best predictors of students' success at Harvard are the AP courses they choose and the AP test scores. "
The close relationship between students' AP scores and college studies is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. In view of the fact that the content of AP course is in line with the university, students can expand their knowledge, improve their thinking ability and problem-solving ability in the process of learning AP course. According to statistics, high school students with excellent AP test scores will have better performance and greater development potential in their future college studies.
Secondly, there are various kinds of AP courses, including 37 courses, which are closely related to university-related majors. Therefore, a student's choice of AP course not only shows his or her interest in the future development direction of university majors, but also shows his or her choice and self-awareness ability when facing different opportunities. This is precisely the goal that top American universities should focus on when enrolling students.
Thirdly, AP test scores also have a positive impact on students' learning perseverance and belief in challenging difficulties during their college years. Students who have taken many AP courses and achieved excellent results are usually more capable and excellent in academic research, challenging academic problems and participating in various activities.
Fourthly, students who take and pass the AP exam usually have higher academic completion rate and graduation rate than other students. Taking public colleges or universities in Texas as an example, the following figure lists the enrollment rate and graduation rate of four types of students in recent years, including students who have passed the AP exam, students who have taken AP courses but have not taken the exam, and students who have not taken AP courses and exams:
Through this set of data, we find that among the students with different races and different AP exam status, the students who pass the AP exam have the highest undergraduate graduation rate. Among them, the graduation rate of African-American students who passed the AP exam reached 53%(49 students) of the enrolled students; The graduation rate of white students who passed AP examination was as high as 65%(2868). On the contrary, the graduation rate of students who have not participated in AP courses and exams is relatively low. Therefore, the correlation between AP scores and college graduation rate and academic completion is still very high. In view of this, we probably have a scientific understanding. We attach importance to AP, and we must not pay attention to whether the AP test score is 2 or 5, but really internalize our knowledge in the process of learning AP. Then, we should move on to the next topic, how to learn AP?
What is the best way to learn AP courses?
Everyone has their own learning methods, just follow your most efficient way. The following are just some misunderstandings in students' study at present.
1. Never learn Chinese AP courses.
At present, these problems exist in the teaching of self-taught AP and some training institutions. The whole self-study and teaching are in Chinese, and even professional terms are in Chinese. In the choice of teaching materials, never choose Chinese books as learning materials. On the one hand, it is not conducive to the final AP exam. On the other hand, for a student who is about to study abroad, it is the most basic requirement to form the habit of learning academic content in English. Learning in Chinese is not conducive to helping students develop western education and learning thinking. Therefore, even if you don't have the ability to learn English at present, you should take English as a technical term first, and then gradually increase the proportion of English in AP learning, from bilingual learning to pure English learning.
Never seek a short-term breakthrough for the purpose of passing the exam.
Now some institutions use the thinking of training TOEFL SAT to teach AP, so that students can pass the exam quickly in a short time. It is not advisable to study AP courses only through exam training. The difficulty of AP is the same as the basic course of freshman, and the whole learning process needs a certain amount of knowledge accumulation. Let's not talk about the final effect of this complete test-taking model. Even if I barely passed 3 points, what I learned was swallowed, which did not completely cover the AP exam outline. This kind of learning does not learn the essence of AP itself, and the problem that comes with it is that when you want to study higher-level courses in university, you will find that your knowledge is very out of touch. It will be hard to keep up then.
3. Read more textbooks recommended by Collegeboard and try not to rely on AP exam guidance books.
There are many AP exam counseling books on the market now, and these three versions are the main ones: Barron, Princeton and Kaplan. The problem with these tutorials is that they don't completely cover the syllabus and test sites, and there are many mistakes, which are easy to mislead students. In the process of learning, it is suggested that students can use AP textbooks recommended by Collegeboard. For example, Giancoli can be used in physics, Krugman can be used in economics and so on. Although these books look thicker than tutorial books, they are not difficult to read carefully, and the knowledge points are also explained to students in simple terms. The effect achieved is far better than the tutorial book.