Jeff, While I have not graded the AP biology exam, I have graded other exams, and as far as content covered, you really have to consider what the exams covers versus what is being taught in the classroom. I have found that how material is covered can vary widely between class, but all the instructors are told how much emphasis is given to each section of material, and the teachers are supposed to teach the courses accordingly. And if a section gets shortchanged by the instructor in the course, that will probably be reflected in the score of the students on the exam.
Considering that, the best suggestion I would offer is to refer to the information online about the AP exam. That will tell you how much emphasis is given to the different topics of the course. They also have sample questions from the past several years, so you can also see how the information is being tested. You can find the breakdown of the AP Biology exam here, and there are links to sample questions, etc. http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/biology/topic.html I hope this helps a bit, Andy -------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Scholl Assistant Professor of Geography Director of Environmental Studies Program Department of Geography Wittenberg University PO Box 720 Springfield, OH 45501-0720 Office: 110B Carnegie Phone: 937-327-7304 Fax: 937-327-9508 asch...@wittenberg.edu -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Corbin, Jeffrey D. Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2011 9:34 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Treatment of Ecology in AP classes Hello Ecologgers - My department is trying to figure out how to best assign credit to incoming students who get 4's and 5's on the AP Biology exam. One proposal is to give them credit for the first class in our Intro Bio sequence, which happens to be the one that presents ecology (along with evolution and genetics). I suggested that this would be a mistake, as ecology is likely given short shrift in many high school classes because it is at the end of all of the textbooks. Quite reasonably, I've been challenged as to whether that is really the case. Does anyone know of any comparison of the weight given to various biology subjects (e.g. ecology, physiology, cell, etc.) in high school classes and the AP exam? I still have a suspicion that ecology is the most likely to be rushed or dropped, but maybe that's just because it is what happened when I took it. In any case, I'd be on firmer ground if I had even one piece of evidence to back it up! Thanks! -Jeff *************************** Jeffrey D. Corbin Department of Biological Sciences Union College Schenectady, NY 12308 (518) 388-6097 ***************************
