[Question about AP exams (and the APAH exam specifically)]

My daughter will be taking her first-ever AP exam in May - AP Art History. 

Our understanding is that the test is taken on paper with actual pen and paper (not on a computer). The first half of the test is multiple choice, and then there is a ten-minute break, followed by the essay portion of the exam.

My question: Does the proctor take away the multiple-choice section as soon as students finish it (before the ten-minute break)? Or can students flip back and forth through the entire test during the three-hour testing period? (Just curious if you can go back and check over multiple-choice answers if you finish the essay portion early - that sort of thing.) Thanks for any info you can provide!

[Does spelling count on AP exam essays?]

6 hours ago, Sebastian (a lady) said:

As long as readers can understand, it should be fine. She might want to work on knowing how to spell artists' names and specific art vocabulary (movements and styles) so she is as close as possible on test day.

 

Thank you! Yes, that is a good idea; I will plan to help her pay special attention to that vocab. 

[Does spelling count on AP exam essays?]

17 hours ago, kokotg said:

The scoring guidelines don't even mention spelling (though I've seen spelling errors not being penalized talked about elsewhere), but I would think what they say about grammar mistakes would also apply to spelling; if the meaning is clear, mistakes are not a big deal: 

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap21-sg-art-history.pdf

So helpful! Thank you for taking the time to share this. 

[Does spelling count on AP exam essays?]

4 hours ago, kokotg said:

spelling does not count 🙂

Oh my gosh, thank you! I think hearing this will really help calm her nerves. Appreciate your taking the time to respond!

[Does spelling count on AP exam essays?]

Does spelling count on AP exam essays? My daughter is a capable writer, but she's not a "natural" speller. She easily self-corrects for this issue when typing on a computer (she capably uses spellcheck), and I'm happy to do a final proofread for her on important papers. But her AP Art History exam will have six handwritten essays, and I'm a little worried her spelling might be poorer than usual in a timed writing situation. (I really don't care much about AP scores, but she does, and she's hoping to score well on this exam.) 

Her errors tend to be minor, and they make sense phonetically (they are always logical guesses!). If the exam reader can generally figure out what she means, will she mostly be okay, or are spelling errors a big deal on AP exams? Thanks!

[Newbie SAT questions]

Hi! My oldest is a sophomore in our homeschool and I'm just looking ahead to things we need to hit next year, when she's a junior. I was looking at the SAT site and it looks like there are prospective dates in place for the test next year (I attached a screenshot). If my daughter wants to take the test on October 7th, 2023, when would I need to register her for that? (How early does that open up, typically?) 

Other questions:

• Did you automatically sign your child up for TWO test dates (one for fall and one for spring?) (Does registration for all the year's test dates open up at once?) 
• The SAT site says most students take the test in the spring of junior year and then again the fall of senior year. However I imagine my daughter will be super busy the fall of her senior year (!), so I was planning on having her take it fall and spring of junior year. Is there any reason that's a bad idea? 
• What is the highest level of math on the SAT? (She took Algebra I freshman year and is currently doing Geometry this year. Will that be sufficient, or is the math on the SAT higher than that?) Obviously we will study and prep specifically for the test, but I just want to get a sense of the work ahead of us. 
• It looks like the test cost $60.00 this year. Is that about what I can expect to pay per test next year, or are there other fees attached that I may be unaware of? 

Any other SAT advice you have is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[Questions about AP exam review books]

My daughter is taking AP Art History this year (this is her first-ever AP; she's taking it through PA Homeschoolers).

She's requested one of the big, fat review books, and I have a couple of questions:

• Does this look like a good one? (AP Art History is not a super popular AP course, so this is the only test prep book I've found online. The copyright date is 2020, so I'm hoping there's been no major changes in the test in three years. Thoughts?) 
• How did your student use their test prep book? (Did they work in it in small chunks across the school year, or did they use it as a crash course at the end of the year? Another way?) 
• In your experience, are the test prep books worth it? (It's not cheap, so I want to make sure it's something we'll actually use and benefit from.) 

Thanks! 

[College Tours - we are on a roll]

Thanks for sharing this! 

My older daughter is a sophomore this year and very clear on her goals for college. We are about to start touring some colleges near us, to get some exposure/practice at dealing with colleges, and to get a general sense of things. (We're just at the very, very start of identifying colleges to put on her list.) Then, next year, we'll probably make some very selective visits to colleges that require more than an hour or two of travel.  

I confess I'm a little torn about visiting schools before applying (I don't want her to fall in love with a school that she might not get into and/or we might not end up being able to afford), but ultimately, our hope is that visiting several schools can show her that there are many places she could be happy and successful. 

We're going to start with our big state U, which, luckily for us is only about 45 minutes away. (We've passed it on the highway, but never done an official tour or anything.) I feel like the state U is a good place to start because (a) she may very likely attend! and (b) it will give her a sense of what life would be like at a huge university.

Beginning this whole college process is definitely overwhelming, but my hope is that by tackling different aspects across sophomore, junior, and senior years, it won't feel crushing. 

[How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

Depends on the goals. But many school kids do as few has half a dozen "real" labs where they go through the whole process. The high school year where I had both the kids doing a QSL kit, I can't remember the breakdown, but we did them in different ways. Some of them we did as sort of demos just looking at the concepts. Others, they recorded the data and did the calculations but didn't do a write up. I only had them really "do" the whole thing for a handful.

Thank you; it's so great to hear from someone who's used the QSL kit! You're making a good point; we don't necessarily have to do everything in the box, or do it all to the same degree to benefit. (I tend to think in all-or-nothing terms, so this is a nice reframing.) 

[How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I think that ten is a reasonable target.  

Thank you for offering a number! That is helpful. We can definitely manage 10. I think I'll plan for at least ten really well-done labs, and then if we can add in others, I will consider it a great bonus. 

 

[How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)]

2 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

Homeschoolers tend to expect a lot more labs than many students do in other contexts.  For example, if a student takes a college science class with a lab, they will earn 1 credit (one high school year-long course) for a semester's work.  Labs, especially standard intro labs at big Us, usually don't meet more than 14-15 times at the most, although when I taught at a CC ours did meet 16 times, the same as the lecture courses.   Often 1 of those is the lab final.  Often 1 or more of the labs is really basic and the main goal is teaching equipment usage (for example, a class where students learn to use a microscope and look at a few things).  For college bio labs, it's not unusual to spend a week or 3 working on terminology and math (calculating molarity, unit conversions, etc) with the only work being something like 'track the temperature of water to find the boiling point', done primariily to teach graphing.  Sections like mitosis and meiosis may just have students simulate the processes with some sort of bead set so that the instructors can make sure that they understand what is going on.  

With that being said, it varies a lot by subject.  Another common model that was getting going for some classes as I was finishing my TA years was to have students do a very rote lab one week and then choose one variable to change for the next week (this was a tremendous improvement over the education experiment when I was a student, which was to have us design labs where we had no idea what was going on).  In those situations, students only do 8 (at the most) unique labs since they do each procedure twice.  And, some things are harder to do with experiments (there are great simulations, but not great experiments, for DNA replication, but chemistry titrations can be calculated, done as an experiment, and then the variation from the expected can be calculated).  

In my co-op class I have students do something hands-on at least once a month, so at least 8 times each year.  They do 3 real lab write-ups with lab reports, while some others are just addressed in the homework questions or as a page of questions to complete as they work.  But, anything that can be done observationally counts as a lab - plant identification, journaling daily notes about observed insect behavior, examining food labels and comparing nutritional information between types if students are studying human nutrition, learning something about sensory perception and testing it out on everybody in a group, etc.  Obviously those won't work for physics, and if students enjoy labs there's nothing wrong with doing a lot of them.  But, some programs have students doing a lab every week and, espeically if they are done with real lab reports, that's a lot..  I took a ton of college labs, and the only one that I remember feeling like it had a lab report every week was the semester of quantitiatve analysis, and those reports were very repetitive because, well, we were constantly quantifying things.  Once we got to upper level labs, lots of the labs took 2-3 weeks so there were fewer write-ups.    

Thank you so much for this thoughtful reply! So helpful!

[How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

OP, I'm glad you asked this. I was in a co-op lab where we did basically 28 plus hours of labs (we went into lunch many days) and my friend that taught it said that really was a "robust" lab course.  The book I am using lists 36 experiments, including some "observe a ___ reaction" experiments. I think at some point you have to figure out the balance of experiments versus other content.  I tend to really like hands-on stuff, so I really enjoyed our co-op lab course, but I know that it meant the bookwork was all at home (in addition to lab writeups, etc.) so possibly that year was a very high "hours" year for chemistry for those students.

I really wanted my kids to have an experience of "real" chemistry this year with glassware, burner, etc.  but we have already had one experience of a "real" failed experiment. LOL.  My kids do not share my interest in the whys of failed science experiments. They just find them frustrating.  😃 The Microchem kit is nice in that regard--it is far more likely to "do" what it is intended to. 

I look forward to seeing responses on how to/if to balance the experiments versus the other content.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm so glad to know the MicroChem kit experiments are likely to be successful! (I've unpacked the kit, but I haven't tried anything with it yet.) 

My daughter will probably take a Botany with lab class at the community college next year (DE), and possibly a fourth DE lab science after that, so I feel pretty confident she will get a solid science education across her four years. But like I said, chemistry happens to be more utilitarian for us, so I'm just looking to do a solid experience for this year.

If it helps, after I posted this, I looked up the WTMA lab course syllabus and it looks like they do 8 labs per semester. I would definitely like to do more than 8, but it was helpful to see that. 

Thanks again!

[How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)]

Last year, we did biology on our own, at home. It ended up being a great course! I got the QSL biology kit and it was wonderful; we completed 20 labs. 

This year, my daughter is taking chemistry. She is doing the lecture portion of the course through the WTMA and we are doing the lab portion of the course at home. I bought the QSL MicroChem kit, and it looks great, but my daughter is definitely busier this year than she was last year. She is taking other challenging courses in addition to chemistry, and I don't think we'll be able to swing 20 labs like we did last year. What is a respectable number of labs to do? (We loved biology, but chemistry is definitely more of a get 'er done subject for us. What's the bare minimum we can get away with, would you say? If it's relevant, she is an aspiring fine arts major; not looking to go into the sciences in college.) Thanks!

[Looking for recommendations for microscope for high school biology]

Benzmicroscope.com!!

Another boardie shared this site with me and it's great! I bought a used microscope from this small business last year and the transaction was fantastic. If you call or email, an actual (friendly!) human will happily work with you help you figure out what you need. I ended up getting a great microscope (a refurbished AO/Reichert-Jung 150 Series) at a great price. (I don't remember exactly what I paid, but it was under $200.) I knew nothing about microscopes, so I really needed their help. I was super happy with the transaction and I can't recommend them highly enough. I am so grateful to the boardie who recommended them to me. 🙂

[Are semester-long classes "bad"?]

14 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

We have just that - a set of narrow semester long interest driven and home cooked elective courses that are half credit. They tie into DS’s interests. 

Great to know; thanks!!

[Are semester-long classes "bad"?]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

Nothing wrong with half credit courses or doing block schedules and giving a credit for a semester course.

What the semester courses are is the only thing that matters. Colleges want to see more in depth work, interesting courses, rigor, courses that build on each other and paint a picture of a student. If it’s a bunch of random - especially non-academic courses - then that’s not great. If it’s a bunch of narrow topics in a couple of areas of interest then that could be great.

Yes, this makes sense! Thank you! (I appreciate your advice not to do a random smattering of stuff. I can definitely see how that would weaken a transcript.)

I'm picturing the sort of thing one might do as an independent study in college. The chunk of time she'll have seems like such a good opportunity to direct a huge project of her own design. Or do college-level dives into topics related to her career goals and interest in art (art history, art movements, women artists, psychology of color, a senior art thesis that explores something super interesting and combines artwork, research, extensive writing, etc.). Or getting a certification in something like Adobe Illustrator, etc.

Clearly, I'm not sure exactly what it would be just yet--I know her interests will shift and sharpen between now and then--but I'm trying to imagine the types of things we could do. Since we started high school last year, I've been so focused on making sure we're hitting all the "must-dos." I am eager to look ahead and make space for something truly unique and exciting and remember the reasons we're homeschooling in the first place! (At the same time, I don't want to totally screw things up or steer her wrong, so I like to check in with others!) 😜

[Are semester-long classes "bad"?]

6 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I cannot think of any reason why semester long electives would be "bad" - nor why the college would even need to know the course is a semester long course. My transcript lists classes in the year they were completed - the college has no idea whether it took us two years or three months to get to that point.

This is a good point! (In my mind, I think in semesters as I plan things out, but you're right--on paper on the transcript, it won't be so obvious how things were broken out. That is good news!) 

I guess my main concern was: Will several .5 credit courses look "light" on a transcript (as if our work was somehow less in-depth than a year-long course might be). Thank you for your help!

[Are semester-long classes "bad"?]

I'm probably phrasing that question poorly, lol. My daughter is just about to start 10th grade, but I'm long-term planning and it looks like my daughter will have met most of her college admissions requirements by December of her junior year (that is, if she takes some dual enrollment courses in the fall of her junior year). In other words, all she will "have" to do her senior year is English and math, both of which we do at home. She'll pretty much have the second half of her junior year and all of her senior year "free," to study what she likes. Is it in any way "bad" to do DIY semester-long electives once the core admissions requirements are met? For example, she'll likely take DE Intro to Psychology the fall of her junior year. I'm thinking of immediately following that up in the spring semester with a DIY course at home called The Psychology of Color. (She's an aspiring Fine Arts major, so that sort of elective would thrill her.) I can picture several different one-semester courses like that, that she would love (mostly interest-led stuff, but still super academic). Or just spending tons of time developing her art or opening a shop, etc. I could extend some of these ideas into year-long courses, but I feel like we could explore more topics and interests with semester-long courses. I guess I'm wondering two things:

(1) Are semester-long electives seen as somehow "less than" full-year courses?

(2) If I use college-level texts/materials for a DIY course, can I give one credit for a semester-long course (the way DE courses do), or do I always just give .5 credits for 60 hours of work done at home?

I hope this makes sense! Of course, I might also encourage her to just continue racking up DE courses, but she is a super self-directed student, so I can see her wanting to pursue cool independent studies, like a senior thesis project of her own design that combines artwork and research, etc.

Mostly, I'm just realizing how quickly even a couple of DE courses can check transcript boxes, and I'm starting to consider the possibilities DE opens up. Any advice from those with older students would be welcome! Thank you!

[Thoughts on using IEW Structure and Style for Students Level C for 11th and 12th grades?]

Edited to get to the point. 🙂

I have English plans in place for this coming year (tenth grade), but I am considering SSS for the upper grades. Would two years of Level C be too easy for 11th and 12th grades, or can I just scale up/tweak the demands of the assignments to suit my daughter's skill set at that point? (I ask because it seems like Level C is ideally meant for 9th and 10th grades, but it does say 9th grade +, so I’m hoping it might be a good fit anyway?)

I would love to hear any feedback anyone might have about SSS, as I am brand-new to IEW. Thank you so much!

[Question about photo IDs (Ohio)]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

First question--I don't know. They look just like a driver's license, but they say driver's permit on them.

Second question--Yes.  

I don't know why it won't work.

Thank you for responding; I appreciate it!

I feel better now; I think it should be fine. The CollegeBoard website says students who don't have a school ID need to bring a government-issued photo ID. The TIPIC, as far as I can tell, meets that criteria. (It is government-issued and I now know it has a photo, lol.) I was so concerned initially because I didn't think it had a photo. Thanks again!

[Question about photo IDs (Ohio)]

27 minutes ago, Acorn said:

Ohio Tipics have a photo. You no longer receive them same day, so there’s a paper copy until the ID comes in the mail.

 

ETA: I just renewed my license and the old card was punched and returned to me with the paper copy of a new one. I’m supposed to carry both until new ID arrives.

Oh, yay! Thank you so much for letting me know! Okay, that's so good to know. (She'll get her permit in December, so I'm sure the official ID will arrive in the mail by May. Well, I hope, lol!) Thank you!

[Question about photo IDs (Ohio)]

22 minutes ago, Malam said:

You can always use a passport as an ID for the AP test

We don't happen to have passports, but I will keep it in mind as an option - thanks!

[Question about photo IDs (Ohio)]

2 minutes ago, freesia said:

I’m going to let the Ohio people answer the Ohio part but NY learner’s permits now have pictures on them. Also, I know with the SAT you can use a notarized form with a picture on it as ID—so I’m sure that would work. Although none of my kids have actually ever been asked to show ID for their AP tests ( SAT yes.) You could probably google an image of the ID you are wondering about. 

Thank you for chiming in! Appreciate the good ideas! 

[Question about photo IDs (Ohio)]

Context: My oldest daughter just turned 15 and will be taking her first AP exam this coming May.

Are TIPICs (Temporary Instruction Permit Identification Cards - an Ohio driver's permit) an acceptable ID for an AP test? Do they have a photo? (I grew up in and learned to drive in NY state, so I don't know much about Ohio permits. In New York when I was a teenager, driving permits were just a yellow piece of paper; there were no photos or official cards.)

Anyway, my issue: Awhile back, I asked here if students need a formal ID for AP testing. The consensus was that your student does need a photo ID. I went ahead and got both my daughters official Ohio state ID cards (oldest was still 14 at the time). I thought I was all set. But then today I was reading up on when she can get her driver's permit. The Ohio BMV says she can get one when she turns 15 and six months (this December), but that you have to surrender your Ohio ID card when you get one. So, I just went to all the trouble of getting the official ID card, but now it looks like she has to give it up in order to get her permit. So, she'll have a permit, but she won't yet have her official license before the AP test. Does anyone have experience with this? (Special thanks to any Ohio people who can clue me in!) Thank you!

[First-ever AP course coming up; do I need to create a College Board account now?]

14 hours ago, NittanyJen said:

If she is taking the course from an online provider and the test somewhere else (often the case when taking an online class such as through PA Homeschoolers) the class instructor will issue a join code for the class. At that point, your daughter will need her college Board account so she can enter the join code provided by the instructor.

When the testing site registers her for the actual exam, they will issue an exam-only code that will connect to the classroom code and her account.

Make sure she uses a consistent email address through all parts of the process when signing up for the different parts. It is one way to help ensure all the dots connect correctly and scores report smoothly.
 

 

 

Yes, she is taking the course through PA Homeschoolers! (AP Art History.)

Thanks for this info; so helpful!