Comments on Supreme Dicta: Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Also, making orthographic mistakes != making histo...

2008-06-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

Also, making orthographic mistakes != making historical mistakes. It is rather retarded to call someone who spelt "literacy" as "litteracy" incapable of thinking critically. In fact, given the American English tendency to convert intervocalic dental consonants into alveolar flaps, both spellings make perfect phonemic sense.

Do you want to insult my dyslexic teacher too? He is a retired litigator with 20 years in the bar, who has spent his entire life fighting his disability. Maybe every time he makes spelling mistakes you should demand he resign from his position and renounce his PhD?

Don't slam the self-study group ... come college a...

2008-06-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

Don't slam the self-study group ... come college admissions, where your typical Ivy League applicant usually has 16 AP scores to show not counting the ones marked after they graduate, self-study of exams is a *must* in order to have any chance of competing.

I took exams for courses that weren't offered in my school, as well as for courses I couldn't fit into my schedule.

The self-studying AP student *is* the standard AP student.

I do wonder though -- since I have found you lot of AP graders -- has the Sparta meme made its way to the AP graders yet? We hoped to be visible.

I read this post out loud to my wife and -- I kid ...

2008-06-21T14:33:00.000-05:00

I read this post out loud to my wife and -- I kid you not -- her nose started to bleed.

Granted, she has a lot of nosebleeds, and when I laughed at the coincidence, she said, "I haven't had one for a while; maybe it's just catch-up time." Then we both realized that "catch-up" sounds like "ketchup" and we were both laughing our heads off.

I taught 12th Grade Economics at a large public sc...

2008-06-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

I taught 12th Grade Economics at a large public school for a few years. Our district's policy was that anyone, even if they were not enrolled in an AP class, could sit for an AP test if they signed up by a certain date. Since the entire district was Title I, the students paid nothing to take the test. The result was that I saw at least a dozen kids in the room on test day who never sat in the AP class that I had taught. One year, we had over 80 kids take the AP Calculus test, but we only offered one period of AP Calc. I would guess that a lot of these responses were written by students who were somehow led to believe that they were taking a credit-by-exam type test.

I went to school in Indiana and the state actually...

2008-06-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

I went to school in Indiana and the state actually paid the fee associated to the AP math and science courses. I had some ugly moments with AP Biology and Calculus test, but I thought before taking it, hey! it's free, might as well give it a shot!

as an AP grader- Table Leader, I can say several t...

2008-06-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

as an AP grader- Table Leader, I can say several things here:
1) these are rather typical, in any given year
2) some states MANDATE that the students take 1 or more AP exams as part of their matriculation requirements: whether or not they've had the courses (e.g., South Carolina)
3) merely b/c they are in AP doesn't mean a thing, especially with parental pressure upon administrators to admit unqualified kids in "because he needs it to get into college!!!"

my 3 cents.

In my public school system, AP is for advanced stu...

2008-06-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

In my public school system, AP is for advanced students, and the school has the option, and always exercises it due to limited spots, to turn kids away. This is the cream of the crop. In fairness, Government is usually that second semester senior class for kids who didn't want to take econ.

I'm pretty sure these comments were not passed alo...

2008-06-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure these comments were not passed along by the students' teacher, but by the exam grader. AP exams are not graded by the teacher of the course, but by a committee of teachers from around the country.

Ok, to take a slightly different point of view on ...

2008-06-19T08:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, to take a slightly different point of view on this, does anyone feel that maybe the teacher should have been held just the tiniest bit responsible for turning out AP students without the slightest clue about important questions and topics in American history? Honestly, the teacher may have passed these along because he/she thought that they were funny, but they sure as heck reflect very poorly on that teacher.

The WaPo has an article today (sorry, too lazy to ...

2008-06-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

The WaPo has an article today (sorry, too lazy to find a link) about an AP grader who was kicked out for being a terrorist. (Actually, becuase she didn't have enough forms of ID). That's the main story, but in the article she states that she moved from grading AP US History to AP European History because kids are being "tracked" into AP US History and as a result, the answer quality has declined.

This article just proves her point. But, apparently she is a terrorist...

I'm not surprised. During law school, I worked as...

2008-06-19T04:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not surprised. During law school, I worked as a TA for the political science department. This particular department was located at one of the top-ranked universities in the country. I found responses similar to these on essays - most were less egregious, but still not what I expected from students at that school. My personal favorite? Did you know that Thurgood Marshall wrote the opinion in Marbury v. Madison? Because I sure hadn't. :)

Now while this is entertaining, and no doubt the w...

2008-06-18T22:10:00.000-05:00

Now while this is entertaining, and no doubt the work of some kids in serious need of American history, it is not an accurate reflection of all students taking the AP Govt. Exam. To judge American public schools or just students who take the Govt. exam based on these few answers is painting the picture with a broad brush. A history teacher once told me that a student wrote about how Ferdinand Magellan circumcised the globe. That happened to be one of the best social studies students that the district had ever seen, scoring a 5 on every social studies related AP Exam. He just had a bad day. Do not let the answers above think that those who take the AP Govt exam are either learning impaired or otherwise incapable of comprehending American History/Govt. I will say though, having taken the exam myself this year, that was the easiest essay question on the exam.

While it may be a violation of the grader's contra...

2008-06-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

While it may be a violation of the grader's contract, how does it violate the privacy of the students who provided the answers? There is no way to identify the students -- indeed, even for the graders, there is no way to identify who wrote the exam answers.

Also, while I agree that AP Government traditionally attracts some "nontraditional" AP students, the Anonymous post at the top of the page implies that the score isn't forwarded to colleges, and that's not the case; it most certainly is reported just as all the scores are. AP Exams are not graded until June, with scores typically arriving in schools' and students' mailboxes in July.

AP is supposed to be for "advanced" students only....

2008-06-18T18:36:00.000-05:00

AP is supposed to be for "advanced" students only.

In the public school system I'm familiar with, they are not permitted to refuse entry into AP classed for any kid who asks. So theoretically the "advanced" class could be full of average or below-average students with delusions of grandeur.

I had an English teacher who graded AP exams. He told me this story about someone who wrote an essay on a novel the grader hadn't read. When this happens, the essay is passed around from grader to grader until they find someone who has read it. Turns out none of the graders had ever read or heard of this book. Someone went to the library to find it, and discovered that no such book existed, and it was apparently made up out of whole cloth. Pretty brave move on the student's part.

maybe these people were just math jocks? although ...

2008-06-18T18:34:00.000-05:00

maybe these people were just math jocks? although I did very well on all the 'liberal arts' AP exams I took in high school, I have never done as badly on any exam in my life as I did on AP calculus.

All AP tests will have answers like these. At lea...

2008-06-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

All AP tests will have answers like these. At least when I was in high school, they make you sign up and pay somewhat early in the year for the exam. A large number of students, especially high for seniors, will not study all year and will sit for the exam anyways because they've already paid for it, because who knows you can always get lucky.

If it makes you feel any better, the AP Government...

2008-06-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

If it makes you feel any better, the AP Government test has traditionally been viewed as the runt cousin of AP's, since it's usually taken by high school seniors who coast through it during the year and who have little incentive to apply themselves on the test. It doesn't get taken as seriously as a course like AP European history, which requires serious study time throughout the year and for which the AP test score is forwarded to colleges.