AP stands for Advanced Placement; these are college level courses. They are a lot harder than honors and regular classes, they are about the same as GTI classes though. AP classes include a lot of homework and the tests are hard. every week you have about 4-5 hours of homework. I know that it sounds like a lot but when you spread it out to about and hour a day or less if you work quicker then it is not as bad as it seems. Every week you have to do home work on four key issues, for two of the key issues you get a guided reading and for the other two you have to do notes. Your teacher will not tell you when you have to do it, you just have to start on it the day that you get it. It is a good idea to start on the vocabulary so that you understand all of the key issues (the chapter) then you move on to key issue one, then two… and so on. You also take notes in class, these do not count as your key issue notes, these are categorized as class notes. You get points for all 4 key issues, vocabulary, class assignments, and class notes, if you think that you can get away with not doing everything then you are wrong because if you do not do everything then you will get docked points.

Before every test she has you turn in your binder that is specifically for that class, this is where your key issues, vocabulary, class assignments, and class notes should be, you don’t want to turn these things into the basket because in order to make sure you did everything the teacher checks your binder. If you do not have your binder with you on the day of the test so you cannot turn it in, you have to turn it in the very next day or it does not count as being turned in and you get zero points, if you turn it in the day after the test – like you are supposed to if you forgot it the day of – you will only receive half credit for everything that you have done, so if you got everything and it would be 100% if you turned it in on time, then, because you turned it in late you would only receive 50%.

The end of year test is worth 3 college credits, if you do not pass the test you do not earn any college credit. The end of year test is on “everything” you have gone over, so constantly study old material too, every once in a while you should go over the old chapters. Every piece of homework you get is preparing you for the final test. Every test she makes you take in class is also preparing you to do better on the final test. With test corrections you also learn something because you get to see the mistakes you made on that test and you can learn not to make those same ones on the final test. With test corrections they give you five points of extra credit, and although it may not sound like much it helps a lot, even if you only do test corrections once it can still take you from a C+ to a B- that easily. It could take you from an F+ to a D- so from failing to passing, and if you do test corrections on every test you take that is giving you 15 points because we go over 3 chapters each quarter.