When I went to college...most of my classes had 4 grades...usually 2 exams (sometimes only one midterm), a paper, and a comprehensive final. Some classes might have one additional grade (maybe a presentation, maybe some other strange thing, possibly a second paper).
Now I don't think that an AP class should be run that way because when I took AP History I needed tons of practice learning how to give an acceptable answer to a DBQ (document based question) or straight essay question and there is so much material to cover so I do think ample opportunity is needed to practice writing a good answer. But all the super duper busy work assignments are silly if you are trying to say the class is comparable to college...college has NO busy work assignments (if you want to make note cards you do but they aren't graded).
