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省常中AP项目中心外方校长Michael Larsen先生目前就为何选择省常中美国课程班发表了自己的看法和见解。Michael J. Larsen先生是一位造诣颇深的外籍专家，曾获加拿大政府颁发的“科学、技术和数学学科总理卓越教学奖”。（翻译文字附后）

Why enroll in the AP Program at Changzhou Senior High School?

The Advanced Placement Program was developed more than 50 years ago and is run by the College Board – a nonprofit organization based in New York.  It develops and maintains guidelines for teaching higher level courses in many different subject areas.  At our school we currently offer Calculus, Physics, Macroeconomics and US History. In the future we plan on offering many more courses. In order for a school to be able to offer an AP course, the school and the teacher must meet or exceed rigorous standards. Each teacher must submit to the College Board a syllabus of the course to be reviewed and approved. Failure to do so would mean that credit for an AP course cannot be placed on the student’s transcript.

Because of the rigor in instruction and in content, if the students score well on a standardized exam, many colleges and universities will give advanced placement (meaning that the student can choose not to take the first level university course) or advance credit towards their university degree. Every post-secondary institution has its own set of guidelines as to what it chooses to do with the students’ marks on the exam. Research consistently shows that students who score a 3 (out of 5) or higher typically experience greater academic success in college and improved graduation rates than their non-AP student peers.

As with any school, we want our students to be successful. They have set out on a program that will see them go on to a post-secondary career in another country. We have hired a number of outstanding teachers from a number of different countries giving the students the experience of learning university level courses in English – as well as giving the students insight as to what it is like living and going to school in a foreign country.

Though we are designated as an AP center, clearly it would be the students’ best interests to go beyond the AP exams. To that end we would like to see the following from each student:

1.      Complete all graduation requirements as set forward from the school and the province – with as high a GPA as possible.

2.      Be successful on as many AP exams as their ability allows.

3.      Obtain acceptable scores on English Placement exams (e.g. TOEFL)

4.      Obtain acceptable scores on SAT exams – especially in critical reading and math，and in subject specific SAT II exams.

为什么选择常州高级中学的AP课程

AP项目(全名：美国大学预修课程)由设立在纽约的非盈利组织——美国大学理事会主办，已有50多年的发展历史。该项目旨在为教授大学水平的不同学科课程提供指导方针。目前我们学校提供的AP课程有微积分、物理、宏观经济学和美国历史，而未来我们会开设更多的AP课程。为了开设AP课程，学校和老师都必须满足一系列严格的标准。每个任课老师都必须向美国大学理事会提交自己的教学大纲。如果提交的教学大纲无法得到美国大学理事会的批准，该门课程的学分就不能开具在学生的成绩单上。

由于教学指导和教学内容都有严格要求，如果学生能够在ＡＰ考试上取得好的分数，许多大学会接受这个成绩或转换的学分（这就意味着学生可以选择不修大学的一部分基础课程）。尽管各个学院对于学生的ＡＰ分数设定了不同的参考标准，一直以来的研究表明，与没有参加AP课程的同龄人相比，拿到3分以上（满分为5）的学生在大学将有更高学术成就，更高的毕业率。

跟所有学校一样，我们都希望我们的学生可以成功。目前省常中设立了ＡＰ课程项目，帮助学生们去其他的国家接受高等教育。我们聘请了众多来自不同国家的优秀老师全英语教授学生大学程度的学科内容，同时，也能让学生更直接地了解到国外的生活和学习情况。

虽然我们是一所AP课程中心，但我们希望学生们追求的不止AP考试本身。为此，我们希望每一个学生能做到以下几点：

1.      达到学校和江苏省高中生毕业要求，并尽可能获得更高的平均成绩。

2.      通过尽可能多的AP考试（３分以上）。

3.      在语言考试中获得理想的成绩（比如：托福）。

4.      SAT和SAT II考试获得理想成绩，尤其是在批判性阅读和数学方面。