Ap Classes Benefits

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In the 1950’s the intentions of AP classes were to benefit students. These rigorous classes were meant to give student’s college level work and exams to better prepare them. While also gaining college credits to save money. However, over the course of time the purpose of AP classes have changed and failed. In particular, many colleges do not accept AP courses as college credit and students are required to repeat the course at college, an honors class is seen as more useful in the long run, students do not get credit for the class if they do not pass the exam, some state that the work is not like college work at all, and it causes students to be stressed. Overall, AP classes are not worth suffering through, there is no guarantee that the classes …show more content…

John Tierney a teacher and contributor for The Atlantic argues that, “AP courses are not, in fact, remotely equivalent to the college-level courses they are said to approximate. Before teaching in a high school, I taught for almost 25 years at the college level, and almost every one of those years my responsibilities included some equivalent of an introductory American government course. The high-school AP course didn 't begin to hold a candle to any of my college courses. My colleagues said the same was true in their subjects.” Students are constantly told that they are receiving college-like work when they take AP classes but the truth is that they receive almost the same work as an honors class. The main difference is that the honors students are guaranteed credit for the class, but an AP student may not receive a credit at all because they do not pass the final exam. Tierney also states “The courses cover too much material and do so too quickly and superficially. In short, AP courses are a forced march through a preordained subject, leaving no time for a high-school teacher to take her or his students down some path of mutual interest. The AP classroom is where intellectual curiosity goes to die.” By taking a different course such as an honors class students are able to gain more learning and go into depth with the