When freshmen who seriously want to academic challenge themselves start their secondary schooling, they have an important decision to make: AP World History or Honors Western Thought?

This is understandably a hard decision to make. On the curriculum guide, it says that the two classes are of similar vigor. But then, what makes AP and Honors different? AP World covers the beginning of civilization to near modern history. Honors Western Thought covers the Western perspective on topics from Art to Economics over time. Those who choose the AP course are generally woefully under-prepared for the workload because they expect it to be easy like their advanced classes from middle school. But factor in study time for tests, daily homework, class pacing, and the amount of material needed to be learned, and it’s suddenly all too much.

Luckily, the AP teachers are able to help the students by letting them do test corrections, redo many assignments, and only take off a small percent for late assignments. These breaks are very useful in allowing the student to get the grade they want. Without these, the class would be very hard to get an “A” in. The teachers do this because, according to Mr. Skidmore, “the difficulty of the course makes it almost a necessity”.

Really, the goal of the class is not to get an “A”, but to pass the AP exam in May. The exam tests students on all the material learned in the class over the course of the year. The exam, for those who do not know, can get the takers into better colleges and even allow them to skip college intro classes. This is beneficial as it lessens the cost of fees and allows students to take other classes that they would rather be taking. The test is structured into a multiple choice section and a writing section. Test takers can get scores up to a “5”, but that is very unlikely. While many colleges will accept a “3”, the very best universities will only accept a “5”.