I had been intending to give the next assignment yesterday, but had been holding off a little bit longer until I had received all the results of the survey the class was asked to fill out by yesterday. Less than half the class has bothered to answer it as of the end of the day today. Considering the lack of effort exerted by many in filling out a mere survey to help me determine the material which the class would like me to emphasize, I am not filled with optimism on the amount of effort that is being spent on the actual assignments given in preparing for the exam. Based on the summary of responses that were actually received we will be moving forward as follows: 1) Areas of greater emphasis will be Array Lists and writing classes and their interaction with other objects. 2) Most are finding the answer keys sufficient and grading rubrics helpful. Several of those who said the were not helpful also indicated that they were NOT looking at the answer keys and rubrics. ??? How can an answer key be helpful to you if you are not even looking at it ??? 3) I have yet to receive a single email request for further clarification on any assignment from any of the respondents who said they are not finding the answer keys helpful. You're taking an AP level class ladies and gentlemen. Take some ownership of your education and ask me questions if you have them. Several people have been doing so and I have given them detailed responses to their queries. I am always happy to answer your questions. 4) Some people indicated that when they do the assignments, they make silly mistakes and it would help if they had the syntax rules, method headers, code examples, etc. in front of them when they answer the questions. Ladies and gentlemen, you can and should be using your notes as you answer these questions. The exam itself is going to be open notes. Start getting yourself organized now as to what kind of "cheat sheets" you want for reference when you take the exam. You are even allowed to use a compiler and development environment to double check your code if you wish. We will talk more about maximizing your time and test taking strategies next week. I am opening up the last section of assignments from the college board that will be tested - Unit 7. These are the multiple choice and free response questions. They will be due on Monday, 5/4/20. Starting Monday, we will start emphasizing the material that people indicated they wished me to review more. IMPORTANT: You should already be aware of this if you have been checking the updates on the student portal from the College Board. ON MONDAY, MAY 4 the college board is opening up an AP EXAM DEMO that allows you to practice taking an online AP exam this year. It will give you familiarity with the process and also verify that your testing device will be able to access and submit the online exam. IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE DEMO EXAM, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE AP EXAM. So check on Monday to make sure that you can access the demo and familiarize yourself with the format being used this year for the online test. You will NOT have the time to waste figuring it out on the day of the exam itself. Also attached is the exam day checklist you should have for your AP exam. You should have it printed out in hard copy next to you on the day of the exam. We have a little more than two weeks left for the exam. There is still time to properly prepare yourself, but you need to get serious about your efforts. I have received several updates from the College Board as to what you should be doing to prepare for the actual exam and will be giving you a checklist shortly.
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