This is a self-centered post, for which I ask my readers’ indulgence.
This has been my first year teaching AP Physics, and the first year of the new AP Physics 1 exam. (For those not familiar with the change, effective last fall the old algebra-based AP Physics B course was split into two courses: AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based and AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based. There were no changes to the two calculus-based AP Physics C courses.) Like many high schools, we turned the old honors Physics 1 course into the new AP Physics 1 course.
To say that my students were nervous going into the exam would be an understatement; some of them were basket cases. However, when I met some of them on their way out of the test, they said things like, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” “It was much easier than the practice test,” “Most of it was stuff we saw in class,” and from one of my top students, “I think I got at least a 4.”
I am happy — happy for my students as well as for myself.
