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Joined: Feb 2011
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Yes, exactly as Val notes. My DD's AP Literature course is appalling in terms of the multiple choice "quizzes" offered.
I think I posted one of the peculiar little "gems" from that course last autumn in the Bad Homework thread. The Lord Byron/Mary Shelley muse question? THAT question? Yeah-- 20% of the grade on that particular "assessment" was on the basis of that one question. Which my DD got wrong-- not because she didn't know, but because she was thinking too much. She could have written a cogent paragraph-- or more-- answering that question, but couldn't "choose" a single correct answer because there wasn't one given.
That is fairly typical from what we've seen in this class. Her quiz grades are about 20% lower than all her written work. In spite of our sense that her writing skills are "average" that is clearly not the case relative to her academic peers, though if HER writing is "exemplary" (as it seems to be by today's HS standards) then I shudder to imagine was "passable" has become.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill freshman says that his college classes are easier than his AP classes in high school: http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2851Challenge Me: A student at UNC-Chapel Hill is surprised to find that his freshman courses were less rigorous than many high school classes. By Alex Thomas May 26, 2013 [C]ollege is not as hard as it used to be—or as it should be. German class turned out to be easier than my AP classes in high school; the workload was nothing compared to that of my AP US History course. We had small assignments, but there wasn’t any outlining, and the homework was simple compared to that of the AP curriculum. How could this be? After all, weren’t those AP classes proclaimed to be college-level courses? I immediately thought that this was a fluke, a rare occurrence in higher education.
My next class was a Geology 101 lecture. It was in a lecture hall that could seat a hundred people easily. I thought for sure this had to be the course that would force me to study for hours on end with teachers who knew no limits. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was only slightly harder than my German class, with a workload significantly less than that of my advanced classes in high school. (However, I would personally like to state for the record that I did not enjoy learning about rocks.)
The rest of my classes followed a similar pattern to the previous two: they required very little effort compared to my AP classes. Even a history course, American History after 1865, needed no extra effort on my part in order to pass the class. The course only required two essays, neither of which was as difficult or as challenging as those I wrote in my high school AP History class.
Reflecting back on this experience, I believe that the classes I took my in my first semester at UNC were less difficult than my AP courses. My high school teachers used better and more efficient methods of teaching than those I saw in my first year of college. The amount of work they gave me proved to be more challenging and more time consuming than my UNC workload. If I knew what I know now back in high school, I would have put less effort into preparing for Carolina. It would have been demotivating to know that an elite institution such as Carolina is less challenging than a good high school curriculum.
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell
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That would not surprise me one bit, coming from a HG/HG+ student.
We fully anticipate that DD will find many of her college courses easier than some of her high school work.
It's about the VOLUME.
With the hubris of the young, however, this individual has conflated those two things in a grossly distorted fashion.
And really, 101? Someone who took AP coursework in an area in high school should not BE taking 100-level courses. Those are usually BELOW the level assumed for an AP offering.
Duh. Bad advising and course selection, I'd think.
It'd be interesting to see what his opinion is after more than a semester peppered with intro courses, actually.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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That would not surprise me one bit, coming from a HG/HG+ student.
We fully anticipate that DD will find many of her college courses easier than some of her high school work.
It's about the VOLUME.
With the hubris of the young, however, this individual has conflated those two things in a grossly distorted fashion. Once again, huh? What's being distorted here?
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Dang. I know I didn't take a single multiple choice test in AP English. History, maybe. English? Are you kidding me?
I'm pleased to say that none of my college classes were easier than anything I took in high school (and my high school is supposedly extremely good). I was a star French student in high school and tested into a rather high-level French class as a college freshman. The professor was from the Ivory Coast and spoke in rapid-fire, very high-level French from day 1. We started off by reading The Plague (in French, obviously) and writing a literary essay on it (again, in French). I got a B-; the paper was seething in red ink. Welcome to college. It was sort of refreshing.
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That would not surprise me one bit, coming from a HG/HG+ student.
We fully anticipate that DD will find many of her college courses easier than some of her high school work.
It's about the VOLUME.
With the hubris of the young, however, this individual has conflated those two things in a grossly distorted fashion. Once again, huh? What's being distorted here? He has concluded, based on ONE semester at ONE college, in a series of admittedly introductory (and non-majors level, if I'm right) courses which SHOULD be at-- and in one case, below--the level of those very same AP courses, that AP coursework is "harder than college." Yes, I'd say that is probably hubris in someone who hasn't yet taken anything upper-division. Heheh. Why wouldn't a class that you nominally recently completed seem "easy" compared to the first time?? Particularly at the 100 level? Good heavens, if it didn't, then the author probably isn't college-ready. As for the reduction in volume, that's what I'm talking about. He may find the volume lighter in college. I don't doubt it. But no WAY do I accept that what was sufficient for A's in those AP high school courses in terms of quality would be acceptable for them in a collegiate setting. Now, the effort required to produce cogent essays is probably far less-- because as noted, it's his second time through the material.  As for the comparison of introductory German and AP US History (which is notorious for its workload, incidentally), that's a spurious comparison to start with. Very different learning tasks involved there.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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I sincerely wish that I were. 
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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I always appreciated a good multiple choice exam in law school.
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My two cents:
HK, you're absolutely right that there's no reason to be taking 100 level courses for content you tested out of in advanced HS courses. I bet he's in for a different experience, when he starts taking upper level courses in his major!
I have to quibble with your assertion that the volume of an advanced high school student is greater than college. Bear in mind that generally, the high school student gets a whole academic year to cover the material in a one semester course at a university.
An example from my own life, I took AP Calculus and passed the AP test as a senior in high school (I had an honors/AP-heavy course load that senior year). It allowed me to test out of a college math course, but I still needed math credits for my major (Geology). The pace of my Math 111 and Math 112 courses was much faster than anything I had experienced in high school. The same goes for other "college level" courses I took in high school; we covered similar material with similar assignments and evaluations, but we took twice as long to do it.
In my experience, most of the courses I had for my major in college were much harder than anything I had in high school, but many of my GE courses were on par with or easier than my "college level" high school courses.
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If you are talking to someone and they think that Stanford is an "Ivy League" school, you can be certain that you are talking to one of the lumpenproletariat and adjust your expectations accordingly. No, the person with the mistaken view is pretty smart. I found this interesting : http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/07/when-did-stanford-join-the-ivy-league.htmlI also think Stanford has a lot of prestige associated with it. It is also pretty hard to get into Stanford -- you need excellent scores, AP courses, top 1% of your high school etc etc. As for the reduction in volume, that's what I'm talking about. He may find the volume lighter in college. I don't doubt it. But no WAY do I accept that what was sufficient for A's in those AP high school courses in terms of quality would be acceptable for them in a collegiate setting. I agree with this. In HS, it is more about accomplishing the volume of work. Quality matters, but it matters so much more in college
Last edited by mom2one; 05/28/13 04:09 PM.
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