In my experience...university liberal studies classes freshman year...2-3 exams, one or two papers depending on class. How you learned the material for the exams up to you. LOW volume...read, study how you see fit on your own time table.
High school AP class (in 1983)...many smaller assignments (in addition to reading and retaining the material out of the text book, we had assignments out of Annals of American History books to read and summarize and compare writings from there) and many tests but it took all year for me to learn how to write high quality essays on exams. But she did not require tons of outlining and note cards and assignments that I hear kids have to do today (high volume)...we were supposed to read and learn the material using whatever method we found helpful.
My math classes in high school and my math classes in college were very similar because someone clued me in to the fact that the evening class was more like a high school math class in that it had less than 30 students in it. The other sections of the class had giant lecture twice a week by the professor and then small group sessions run by a grad student and I know I wouldn't have liked that.
Only difference, college...he didn't collect homework but you were still expected to do it, high school they did. So same volume but no penalty for not doing homework. College grad student teaching me had an accent and was an extremely fast talker and I had to pay REALLY close attention because many of his words sounded very similar. Kept me on my toes.
