Help Justify Advanced Placement

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

But it isn't so much whether that specific task is done as the concept is important (and being able to do and understand that math indicates certain fundamental competencies). Even if the students don't actually calculate standard deviation, I have to think that the concept (imprecision of measurement and variability of results) will be discussed quite a bit.

The actual computation of standard deviation I found easy...it was the whole concept of significant figures that took me a while to be comfortable with for some reason. It makes sense now, but it drove me batty learning it (and I'm glad I mentioned that because now I get the 3 grams -> 4x0.8 grams).

My high school did things a bit backwards. Physics first, then Chem, then Bio. If you were in calculus by the time you were taking physics, then you were allowed to take AP Physics. Not sure what their reasoning was for putting physics first. Chem before bio made perfect sense as AP bio is largely applied chem.