I just finished grading the first set of group quizzes of the year in AP Stat. 1

The first set of major exams will start tomorrow. Toss in our Open House on Wednesday night into the mix, and this is why the upcoming Friday will only be matched in relief and joy by May 9 (the Friday of our AP Exam).

Ten times this upcoming year, I will go through this group quiz / major test grading run — that’s twice each six weeks until SW6, when we review for the AP exam.

The experience is about 50 percent enjoyable and 50 percent pain.

Or maybe it’s 20 percent fun and 80 percent pain. It depends.

1. which I decided to graded individually this time, contrary to SOP. [↩]

This was today’s see-if-the-clickers-are-working question. No one picked “salad” in either class. NO ONE.

When I brought this up in 8th,1 one kid responded,

This is America. We’re all about FREEDOM.

Uh. What.

I spent a couple of hours this evening taking the 2013 Stat AP Exam International/Alternate that was released to teachers today.2

39/40 on the MC, 3-4-2-3-4-3 on the FR. 88/100 overall. Actually thought the domestic “Form O” free response was more difficult in some ways, that the Int’l was more moderate overall in difficulty.

I think two things:

1. College Board is trying to make the test harder to “teach to” – this is, IMO, a good thing.
2. We need new textbooks for AP Stat. Things have changed a lot in the past 4 years… and they’ve changed A LOT in the past 9 — which is when our current texts were published.

1. this 8th period is a madhouse^madhouse, btw [↩]
2. for kicks. yes, for fun. felt like Christmas when I got the e-mail that it was available. [↩]

(I was contemplating whether or not to post this… but why not.)

This past Friday I went down to the counselor’s office to inquire about a particular student.

The counselors were busy1, so I sat down to wait.

The new secretary working in that office looks at me and asks,

Do you have an appointment?

. . .

-_-

. . .

Mmm hmm.2

1. it’s been a CRAZY week [↩]
2. If you’re wondering what happened… there were about 5 seconds of awkward confusion, after which I managed, “I’m waiting to speak to Jan (the FIRST name of the counselor I needed to speak with) about a student.” She looked bewildered that I referred to one of the counselors by first name, then I think she realized what had just happened and sat down. Sigh. [↩]