welcome back to college courtesy i'm today we are going to be discussing the impact of a p classes on high school student looking for higher education if you're watching this and you or your child is not yet in the high school a p advanced placement these a p classes are offered a p t just at a faster pace that other courses at are more comparable to college classes there are numerous benefits to taking these challenging courses that can help your application stand out college credits skip introductory classes and build college skills today we have miscued my a p literature composition teacher thank you so much for coming on the show with us today you're welcome thanks for having me yes so first i just want to talk about a p classes in general so why in your opinion do a p classes help students when they are trying to pursue higher education like you said we really tried to replicate what a college level courses like even though it's still in your forty one minute period there is a lot of individual preparation that a student must do and independent reading in analysis and things like that so it's really on the student to make the class you know what he or she wants to get out of it right so first students looking to take your class or any other a p class next year what can they do now to prepare for that taking the courses that preceded  will help if they take the p language and composition course their eleventh grade year but we actually have students that come up from the honors level and they do well as well it's really just reading a lot getting yourself used to reading more complex texts so if you're looking for summer reads maybe look at the college board website and see what they suggest get some good ideas just getting in the habit of reading and writing very college board is a resource i use all the time is there any other resources that we could look at now to get ready for next year we do have a summer reading assignment it's an essay called how to read literature like a professor so that's required of every student going into the course and we references throughout the year so just reading that in preparation for the amount of reading that you're going to have to do and what you're expected to do as you're reading that's a good way and like i said before just just reading as much as you can definitely help i always reference that essay when i'm trying to write an essay for myself tests in a p literature we prepare throughout the year a p tests preface kind of enter spurs into everything that we do so read a piece we'll discuss it we'll analyze it and then we'll answer some multiple choice questions that are modeled after what you see on the test or you'll have to answer an open ended essay question that's modeled after the test so really just being present and participating in the classes is the biggest and greatest first step additionally the saturday study sessions that are available through names and the dates are escaping me right now but you can sign up for them that's a good test prep and looking at the college board website there's a list of questions open ended questions for the past ten or twenty years just seeing the question that is asked year after year  exposing yourselves to the the the poetry and the pros that are available on the website there's also on the on me a course description a sample multiple choice as well so really gets you some practice  so would you recommend for all of the students taking a p literature in conversation to give their best shot at the a p test i think so because you don't know when it's going to come in useful it can exempt you from a college class it can give you college credits i had a student that just came up to me who graduated last year and said he didn't expect to use the score that he received on the a p test and it ended up coming in useful he actually needed a prerequisite and those that his score counted for that prerequisite to get into a higher course in his college so there's and there's no reason not to it's it's not going to prevent you from entering the college that you want to it's just to help you along your way ok good so it's really just get your best shot and right and see what happens because maybe you'll be in a higher class and you thought yeah so yeah so with that situation is there anything else like any other stories that kids have told you that they have got into higher classes from the a p tests or impacted them and their future really i can't say i would say it totally depends on the college that you go to some colleges accept it as you know credits right off the bat  some of the places an entry level english course other than one example i can't think of any off the top of my head but just the experience in writing and sitting for the test itself i think i beneficial too because this is not the last standardized test that you'll take right exactly more to come so yeah so that looks like that's all we have time for today thank you so much for being on our show thank you so much for allowing me to pick your brain about all things literature and composition next we're going to have thank you for watching and stay tuned because in our next segment we're going to have some other a p teachers talk about the of the best minds in america are doing more than imagining american brain foundation seeking to find cures for life without brain disease isn't just something we can imagine something we can my grandfather served in world war two spending time with him were the best memories of my life i became a physician because of my grandfather so i can help others like him i can't imagine working with better doctors or more dedicated staff fulfilling my life's mission with the help of my team and thanks to these veterans i'm proud to be a doctor and proud to honor my grandfather every day search v a careers to find out more here something we bet you didn't know nearly half of all cancers can be prevented that's right half nearly fifty percent mostly by making small everyday changes in your diet and controlling your weight walking more eating less and eating foods that help you and your family to seriously reduce the risk of cancer and course by not smoking visit the cancer prevention together we can website and get a free thirty day planner filled with tips recipes stats and more about protecting your family go to prevent dreaded a p test and what are some general thoughts you have about it's my general thoughts about the all a p testing i feel that any time students can get the opportunity to take a high stakes test that it be so beneficial for you get to college because when you get to college you don't get homework points in participation points you maybe get two tasks so you have to get used to using the stress that sometimes you feel and actually turning it into a successful opportunity so i think any time that a student can take the a p exam i think that in the long run it will be best for them so you think even if the student is for say struggling in this class they should still go for the a p exam that's in that's a really hard because this is just like a blanket statement like i know a lot of our students are taking five or six a p classes if you're doing that you need to think financially and we're kind of lucky with mindy that they're going to pay for half of your exams but financially you have to think about that you have to think about the colleges that you're going to and what exams though accept and what exams they want to accept so if you're taking like four or five a p exams and your college or your major doesn't accept those credits and you really want to do well on certain exams you might have to come in and focus on a couple but like i said before i think that if you can manage i would do as many a p exams as i could that i thought i could be successful at and you're saying accept the one a p tests that you might have you should still go for it at all well i think that it all depends if you're a junior you still you might think you're number one school but that number in one school might not end up being your number one so it's always good to think about that i also like i know like particularly in the science field that if you take the a p can you can get eight up to twelve credits for that one exam so the money so worth going for it and even if the college doesn't accept the a p cam credits which a lot of schools do they still accept it as your general lack of credits or your science credits which what that means is that say you're in a major in cam you would take the a p exam you score five because of course you will and then you have the opportunity to test out but you choose a school that's not going to let you test out you will still be eight or twelve credits ahead of all the other freshman going to register for classes so you end up having so many advantages even if the school does not accept the credits in your area so you just have to like think through where do you think you're going to be successful what schools will they accept exciter of so overall i an advantage taking in your opinion i do and so about taking it preparing for it how early do you think students should start preparing for the a p exam once again i think that all are a little bit different and i'm only familiar with the a p chemistry exam but the a p chemistry exam we start preparing for in honors come like we teach you certain ways to set up problems to think through a problem write down what you're given think what you have to find we're teaching you those strategies all the way in honors i know an a p can we try to cover our content as quickly as possible so that we can then do reviews at the end but the exams that we give you we give you past a p questions on your exam so you're practicing then and then this is your heart and i try really hard to have about two or three weeks before exam to just practice practice practice along the way so that you're good to go are there any differences between all those come in a p come on i know there are some but what are some of the main differences the main differences is that we all cover two semesters of chemistry in a p cam honors chem is really setting you up to be successful in chemistry is the first time you hear that beautiful language of chemistry so you have to learn how to write the mila predict equations those are all things that when you get to college if you took a first semester course they would assume you already know that that those those are like this set ups to get you there in a p and that's why i kind of like when kids take a p classes is that the way i teach a p is very different than honors in honors you're my kids right and i teach you everything you need to know and i show you like where the hiccups could be and we practice where in a p there's so much content because we're literally covering two semesters of college in a year of high school if you consider a lot of a p courses they take an entire year to teach one semester so we're really jammed up especially with the labs that we have to perform that we have to butt a pretty rapid pace so when you're in a pee i say ok this is the chapter here are the questions you have to answer before we even get to that when they test a chapter ten they turn in their test for chapter ten they pick up chapter eleven unit assignment they have to read the chapter and do the unisom it before i even talk about that chapter then i look at chapter eleven and i think where are they going to get stuck and i pick two or three things that i think will get them stuck and that's all i go over in class everything on the union assignment though is fair game everything in the chapter is fair game for the exam just like it would be in college now the students are always more than welcome to come in and if they do their unit assignment ahead it's a whole different way of learning like in honors you sit there and i do a problem and you follow along with me in a p these problems are so big that you'll never remember every step so you have to do the problem ahead of time and isolate where you're getting stuck so then when i go over this huge twenty minute problem you're really focusing like oh my gosh this is where i messed up this is what i need to fix and that will make you super successful i think not only can in college itself so when new things students should start preparing all side of school for that if you assume i think that every course is different so i certainly don't want to contradict any of the a p teachers i know some a p exams are more like on a process and not definite content i know like with a p bio they will probably cringe when the if they hear me say that we have two to three weeks to study because they're teaching one two chapters a week all year through to cover the amount of content they have to cover because they also a p bio does two semesters of college in one year of high school so they have so much content to cover so i would definitely go on the vice advice of your a p teacher my students i tell them right now like i want you to master the content that i'm covering right now and then when we get close sir to our may deadline then we'll start looking at things there's there's so many amazing resources out there and i'll talk about what specific resources have been helpful fresher with that word stress because i think that if you think of an athlete if an athlete is not nervous and excited at the same time before an event then do you want them playing on your team you know when they go out and they play that big game they are that's nervousness is what makes them perform to their bast so i think that when we talk about stress sometimes we all stress together i think that there is good stress you should have anxiety and nervousness because you want to do the best that you can but you can't take that stress and turn it into a downside that you're getting yourself sick about things you're not functioning you're not sleeping you're not eating you're not having any time with your friends like that is not good stress that is you are totally overburdened with the load that you have and you have to distinguish because each person is different i have some students that have five a p s and they walk around without a care in the world i don't know if they're good hiders at it or you know and then i have some kids that take one a p and they just want to be perfect at it and they're completely completely overwhelmed that they're not eating that it's a physical result of stress that's telling you that you should not you need to back off somewhere yeah well that is all the time we have for today so thank you so much for coming in and coming up after the break cosimo will be discussing more often asked questions about the a p exam with mr sussman cared about and i'd be over thinking about what happened in iraq three months ago they're almost like a stranger when you come back everything is different you're kind of discombobulated people were asking me how it was but i got the sounds they've couldn't relate to what i had been through so i just stopped talking about it it made a tremendous difference in my life when i chose to get help in hindsight it probably saved my life save my marriage i personally believe that i'm also a better soldier sometimes when you come home you can see negative distressing concern you can all be out soon will be got you're not going to be the same person afterwards that you were before you deployed and don't try to be accept who you are now figure out how to move forward and make that pos e together we can change and find out how it's safe kids dot org m we like to say students are very likely to see of statistics class in college so it's a big benefit if they've been exposed to it in high school before they get the culture all right great what requirements do they have to me in order to get into the class that's higher level y the requirements or a teacher recommendation any teacher recommendation will get you into the class ok how often have you seen like colleges except that credit from the a p class yeah we see the a p stats credit to be accepted i would say as much as any other class typically a four or five will get you into almost any school in many schools also except a three and you know our past results have been very good and many many of our students can get a three or higher on the exam that's great so how do you go about prepping for this exam i heard it's pretty strenuous you know we wrap up our material the teaching of the class approximately four weeks before the test actually happens so we have about a four week review in which we do  multiple examples of all the types of problems that they're going to see on the exam there also as a nym z and also organization does offer some additional support for that but usually the four week preparation for the exam in april right before em usually gets our students very well prepared for the exam ari so i know like you just said you offer in class help but what if students are struggling and need a little more help what are some resources they can use to get that yeah but i would simply recommend if a student is preparing for the exam and feels like they would need a little bit more help just to talk to myself or mr lacy i will kind of get them set up with an individual plan to be successful yeah and some of the classes i know the a p test itself is optional  should students opt in to take that our past results have shown that you know the a p stats test is the exam that more kids in peter's township take than any other a p stats or any other a p test and our results are always very good our averages are right around four we have you know literally one hundred plus kids getting a three or higher on the a p exam so if they are in the class all year long doing their best participating in or in are preparing adequately for the exam how the probability is very high that they will get a three or higher on the exam what are some other classes at the high school offers that can prep them until like what they're seeing in the course load so if you start this kind of it's own kind of diverse course but you certainly see some elements of statistics in a bio you see some elements elements of statistics in psych and you know it has it does have some basic algebra skills in the class so you know that all of our students have taken algebra one at some point so there is some old algebra class as well  well would you say is the most unexpected part of taking this course i would say the most unexpected part is how little numbers are involved in the class when kids sign up for a math elective they you know would expect to see you know maybe higher level equations but it's really not about the numbers it's about writing we write a ton in a p stats and it's about interpret and so there's a lot less numbers and a lot more writing interpretation yet it's intimidating also i heard because s really there's no other levels it's just eight p so that's intimidating for a lot of people you know we have offered academics that's in the past i don't think we're offering and next year we kind of feel like if you're interested in taking statistics we will recommend taking  like i said most of our students are very successful in the class we try to do everything we can to be available to help our students to be successful in it like i said many students will see statistics either in college or in their careers down the road so we do obviously highly recommend it to take it in high school if they have a chance going along with the a p exam itself how early do you think students should start preparing for that i would throw in the students kind of stay with us in class so we don't start reviewing until about four weeks before if students are actively participating in class and kind of doing what they're supposed to do i don't think they need to prepare until about that four week type period great so why do you think that this is different from just a regular math class they don't exist it's just a lot more writing a lot more interpretation for some kids it feels almost like an english class in the sense that we do so much writing in interpretation how should students prepare for all the writing that's involved with this  i think students should just you know focus on what we do in class we try to do our best to give them kind of a script about what to write about they don't have to be excellent writers you don't have to be an a p english class you  know you're not graded on spelling or even grammar a p stats so as long as you can put some productive thoughts together on the stats that you can you'll be ok ok how do you go about signing up to take the test itself and the study sessions that are offered at some other outside schools or so the this signing up for the test is done online the guidance office will send out a blast everybody about when that's available i think it's usually in february or march and then the study sessions we advertise those in our classrooms in addition to the morning announcements and they happen in february march and april so there's that one a month later that i advertise it to my students and you can you know there are flyers throughout the building to see those why should students go to the study sessions in the first place i think more exposure to statistics and maybe a different person presenting it i'm not presenting at the study session some outside teachers are you know maybe hearing it a different way from somebody else you know just might teach them or help them to to learn something that they hadn't learned before grade how else do you think students should prepare other than going to the study sessions and in class you know i think with the called nation of the outside resources of the study sessions and the inside resources over four weeks review i would recommend we offer some a mock exams students can take to preparing for the exam we offer some online resources such as practice exams and some practice apple