AP Chemistry Reader Page*

Last updated, Thursday, June 9, 2005 (EST)

This page will contain information important to readers in AP Chemistry. As the amount of information accumulates on this page the format is likely to change. Your suggestions for what should be included here are encouraged. If anyone has information they would like placed here just let me know.

2005 Reading

Here is a link to the PowerPoint slide program presented by Trevor Packer at the CollegeBoard Forum on Saturday, June 4, 2005.

Reading Dates for 2005: June 3 - June 9, 2005. So the routine is as follows;

* We will grade through Thursday afternoon, June 9th, and then stay that evening in Clemson and depart June 10th in the morning. If you drive to the Reading, you will be expected to stay until the end of the Reading day on the 9th.

All Readers will be housed in Lightsey Bridge Residence area this year. Check-in at Lightsey Bridge Commons.

More information shortly.

2004 Reading

Here are pictures of the Readers from the 2004 Reading.

Here is the New Reader (Acorn) letter I'll be e-mailing to the new Readers on Monday, May 24, 2004. If anyone has suggestions to this letter let me know.

Reading Dates for 2004: June 3 - June 9, 2004. So the routine is as follows;

* We will grade through Wednesday afternoon, June 9th, and then stay that evening in Clemson and depart June 10th in the morning. If you drive to the Reading, you will be expected to stay until the end of the Reading day on the 9th.

2nd round invitations we sent to ETS on Thursday, March 4, 2004. Deborah is trying to have those in the mail by Friday, March 5, 2004. So look for those invitations during the week of March 8th. If anyone has any questions or concerns please send a message or call. Please not there are some changes this year. Since we will be grading an additional 0.5 days fewer Readers are going to be invited. I'm not exactly sure what the total will be at this time. I was NOT able to invite as many experienced Readers back this year as I have in the past. At least as of today (Friday, March 5, 2004). But that may change depending on the number of exams. PLEASE, PLEASE, contact me if you have any concerns. It hurts not to be able to invite as many Readers back.

The invitation process has begun. I will be sending ETS the invitation list on Monday, November 10th. I imagine it will be 6 to 8 weeks before first round invitations are mailed. This year because of the additional half day of reading there are going to be fewer of us at the Reading. This means fewer first round invitations going out.

My philosophy for inviting experienced readers is to invite those Readers with the fewest years experience first. More experienced Readers receive 2nd round invitations. This year first round invitations to experienced Readers are only going to 2003 Acorns and Readers with 1 and 2 years experience (based on 2003). In fact I was not able to invite all of the Readers with 2 years experience.

If you do not receive an invitation (check here in December, I should have an idea when the invitations are mailed) you are welcome to send me an e-mail if you have questions. But continue to check this page for up to date information.

I will be completing the appointment process shortly. First round invitations will not be out until sometime in December or possibly January, so hang in there. If anyone has a specific question regarding their appointment please contact me.

2003 Reading

I've e-mailed everyone a copy of the e-mail addresses. Here is the latest version.

Here are photos from this morning (Monday, June 9, 2003).

Photo1

Photo2

Hello Everyone. We are hard at work in Clemson. We look forward to your arrival on Monday. Here is a photo of all the table leaders and question leaders that we took today.

Welcome letter to the New Readers

Misc News (5/29/03)....

• Current estimates are about 63,500 Operational exams this year.

• Housing for us will be Calhoun Courts this year.

• Schilletter will be open!

• Fike is not open. They are still working on the pool. The facility below Harcombe Food Court will be open again this year.

• Professional Night will be the evening of Day 4 (Friday, June 6, 2003). Dr. Jim Spencer from Franklin and Marshall will visit to share a new project that he is involved with. It will be an interesting evening. Jim is also a member of the Test Development Committee for AP Chemistry.

• This information is from Lisa McGaw... If you can help, please e-mail Lisa at (lmcgaw@apstrategies.org) and let her know what you can do.

If any of you are driving and could bring any of the following items
to the reading at Clemson, Lisa would be forever grateful. We are going
to tie-dye our t-shirts this year.
2 or 3 liter plastic soda bottles (we need about 16 total)
plastic plant trays -flats- (we could use probably around 30-50 of
these)
old newspaper -lots of this- this is really a messy thing
Thank you all!
Lisa

I will be adding some more information soon.

I talked with Deborah Walder today (4/1/03) to finalize the second round invitations to the Reading. Those invitations will probably be going out sometime this week. So keep an eye out in your mailboxes. You are welcome send an e-mail if you are anxious to know. Right now we are looking at a small increase in Readers compared to last year.

I just received a message from ETS, the 2003 AP Chemistry Reader invitations are in the mail as of today, Wednesday, January 8, 2003. So be checking your mailbox. Remember if you have been a Reader for more than three years you will most likely not be receiving an invitation in the first round. Yours will be arriving later in the Spring. If you have any questions send me an e-mail (jgelder@okstate.edu).

Latest rumor I have received from ETS is that invitations will go out around Januray 3rd. The person responsible for the invitations has completed several other important tasks and can now complete the invitations for 2003. So they should be on their way soon.

I'm deep into the appointment process for 2003. I have to have it completed by the middle of November, 2002. To meet the requested numbers all experienced faculty from Colleges will receive a first round invitation. Those High School faculty with 3 years experience or less will receive first round invitations. As is the normal routine, some of the experienced College faculty will turn down this wonderful opportunity. As those occur, experienced High School faculty will be appointed. So subsequent rounds of invitations will go out from ETS eight or more weeks following the first round (sometime in late December, or early January).

RETIREMENTS

ETS is indicating that High School faculty with more than 6 years experience are to be retired. The Reader Apppointment form that I am to complete has an X in the column for RETIREMENT for experienced Readers with more than 6 years experience. Looking at the Readers appointments from 2002 there were about 8 Readers with more than 6 years experience. Even though this is my second year doing the appointment process I will still claim some ignorance, but it appears to me that even though there is an X in the RETIREMENT column it is still possible that you may receive an invitation for 2003. I plan to e-mail everyone who has the dreaded X to let them know. I do not know what ETS will do, and if there are not enough experienced Readers I will be requesting ETS to invite experienced Readers who have been retired.

College Faculty have the same retirment policy as High Shool faculty, but currently in order to meet the numbers of experienced College faculty, their retirement is not enforced.

Anyone who has questions about their RETIREMENT status, or about this policy is welcome to e-mail me.

RETIREMENT (FACULTY NO LONGER TEACHING)

ETS also has a policy on Faculty who have retired from teaching. That policy is to not invite to the Reading faculty who are no longer in the classroom. I will also e-mail faculty who have been identified in this group. Again if there are any questions please e-mail me.

Reading Dates for 2003: June 3 - June 9, 2003. So the routine is as follows;

2002 Reading Stuff

Well here it is, Tuesday, June 18, 2002 and with the exception of Dale Jensen (TL) and I everyone has returned home following the successful completion of the 2002 AP Chemistry Reading in Clemson. The Reading was a total success. We were able to complete the grading by the afternoon of Day 6 (Monday, June 17th). All though the final count is not in, the required questions grade over 60,000 exams. We ended up with 161 wonderful, hard working high school and college faculty, working seven hours a day for six days to grade all 360,000 questions. I have a few pictures that Donnie Byer's digital camera captured during the Reading that are attached here. More will be coming;

Discussion of Question 8 part b on Day 1

The Clemson College Board Chorale

Readers on Question 4:

Deb Reynolds' table

Donnie Byers' table

Readers on Question 6:

Lisa McGaw's table

Readers on Form B

Two of the best and brightest

Readers on Question 1:

Readers on Question 2:

Readers on Question 3:

Readers on Question 4:

Readers on Question 5:

Readers on Question 6:

Readers on Question 7:

Readers on Question 8:

 

ETS estimates 61,500 exams this year. There will be somewhere between 155 and 160 Readers (we'll know for sure on Wednesday, June 12th).

New Reader letter sent to this year's Acorn. Let me know if I left anything REALLY important out!

• With respect to departure on June 18th. Typically (if all goes well) we finish up reading papers the morning of Day 7 (June 18th) just before the first break. Following the break we convene in Hendrix Student Center (or Brackett Hall) for our closing session. Following lunch buses begin to depart from Calhoun Courts. Shuttle service is available from Lightsey Bridge to Calhoun Courts so it is not necessary to carry your luggage. Any issues with travel plans or changes in travel can be handled at the Reading. The last few days of the reading a travel representative is available on the 2nd floor to deal with any problems.

• Professional Night at the 2002 AP Reading will be Sunday, June 16th beginning at 7:00 pm at a location to be determined. I have asked Nancy Gettys, Assistant Editor, Journal of Chemical Education and Technical Editor, JCE Software to visit Clemson to do a workshop for those teachers that are interested. I asked Nancy to provide a short description of what she would be doing, and that follows;

Enliven Your Classroom With Chemistry Comes Alive! Chemistry Comes Alive! provides a wealth of digital imagery, both static and dynamic, that can be used to enliven your classroom presentations and on-line resources. More than 800 video clips (most with sound) and thousands of pictures show chemistry close up. Workshop participants will learn to incorporate the pictures and videos into their word processing documents, presentations, and WWW pages.

Examples of large projects (ChemPages Laboratory, General Chemistry Multimedia Problems, Periodic Table Live!) that use Chemistry Comes Alive! images will also be demonstrated. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to find images and use the digital imagery collection in Chemistry Comes Alive!

Participants with laptop computers with a CD-player should bring them for a hands-on experience; participants are expected share available computers by working in small groups.

To get a head start on the workshop, visit the Chemistry Comes Alive! pages at JCE Online (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/) to learn about the content of the collection and see sample images and video. A preview of the workshop is also available online (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Workshops/JCEVideo/).

• New Reader FAQ (working on this, so keep coming back for more!)

• New Announcement from ETS and the CollegeBoard that appeared on APcentral on Monday, March 25, 2002.

Important Notice Regarding the Tables of Information for the Free-Response Section (Section II) of the 2002 AP Chemistry Exam

In 2002, there will be a small change in the tables of information provided at the beginning of the Section II (pink) booklet and the green insert. Specifically, the format of the table of standard reduction potentials will change so that the half-reactions will be listed sequentially; the half-reaction with the largest positive E¡ value will be at the top of the table and not at the bottom as it was previously.

• What happened at the lastest Test Development Committee meeting, besides working very hard? One issue that has been discussed is the return of the Arrhenius equation to the Equations and Constants sheet that accompanies the AP Chemistry exam. Also under discussion are the integrated rate laws for simple reactions that follow first order or second or kinetics. Please understand this is under discussion at this time. Our next meeting will be in the Fall of 2002.

• Thinking about attending the 17th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education? It is in Bellingham, Washington on the campus of Western Washington State College from Sunday, July 28th - Thursday, August 1, 2002. Lots of way cool stuff will be there. Of particular interest to AP teachers will be the AP Chemistry Symposium organized by Harvey Gendreau. Check out the draft list of papers. Many AP Chemistry teachers will be attending. See you there!

• As of Monday, February 25, 2002 ETS had 115 acceptances to the Reading. The goal is 142 Readers for this summer. ETS has a list of alternate Readers. The list contains high school readers with 3 or more years of experience. ETS will be sending invitations to these readers soon. Hang in there. Alternate Readers are starting to be contacted as of the week of March 11, 2002.

• I was contacted on January 31st and told that second round invitations will be going out in a few weeks. I should be receiving some information about how many will receive invitations in the next mailing. When I have that information I'll post is here. If you have not received an invitation hang in there. It should happen soon. It is OK to e-mail me if you have any questions.

• Invitations are in the mail. Those in the first round should receive their's this week (12/27/01). In the first round there are approximately 140 experienced Readers and 40 new Readers. There are many experience Readers who have not yet received an invitation (see below). As invitations are declined additional invitations will be sent out. So hang in there. If you have any questions please let me know.

• Since there are 40 new Readers who have been invited (25 College and 15 High School) I plan to send them a letter welcoming them to the Reading. If any of the Acorns (or non-Acorns) from 2001 would like to send a note about their first year experience I will be happy to include your comments (with your name or anonymous...you tell me). Suggestions, hints, reminders...whatever you feel would be helpful to a new Reader. Pass it on, I'll post your contributions on the web site.

• On the weekend (October 20 and 21, 2001) I had lots of fun. My assignment? Select 180 Readers (with attrition there will be about 140 Readers in 2002) from a large pool. The selection process is specifically defined by ETS/CollegeBoard. I'm given ranges of experienced high school and college faculty and new high school and college teachers. I talked to Peter on Saturday night, because my head was hurting. He assured me everything would work out reasonably well.

• The biggest difficulty is with the experienced high school teachers. With the goal of initial invitations at a 60% (College);40% (High School) mix it means that a large number of experienced high schools teachers will not receive invitations in the first round. Peter says I will be able to start inviting experienced high school teachers when the initial round of invitations are declined.

• I am following Peter's model with invitations this year. College faculty who were at the Reading in 2001 will all receive invitations. For High School teachers it is more restrictive due to the goals I'm to meet. All of the 2001 Acorn's will receive invitations, as will 2001 Readers with 1 and 2 years experience. 2001 High School Readers with 3 years experience or more had to be identified as Alternates. Experienced Alternate's will receive invitations as other Experienced Readers decline their invitations. In 2001 we had an approximate distribution of 40% (College); 60% (High School).

• So please know that if you do not receive an invitation (mid to late November or early to mid December) it does not mean you have not been selected. It just means you did not receive first round invitations. It had nothing to do with you...you are ALL GREAT READERS!!! As first round invitations are declined Alternates will be picked up. Peter says this normally works out, so do not forsake!

If there are any concerns or questions please send me an e-mail.

Important Dates in 2001

March 11, 2002: Second Round (alternate) Invitations Mailed

December 22, 2001: 2002 First Round Invitations Mailed

October 22: 2002 Reader Appointments

 

Dates for the 2002 Reading are;

June 9 Question Leaders

June 10 - 11 Table Leaders

June 12 - 18 for the Readers (Please note the 18th is a Tuesday. If you are planning on doing Summer Institutes please watch out for this potential conflict. I did request that Chemistry not finish on Monday as we did in 2001, so that was fulfilled, but clearly there are bigger issues that ETS must contend with...sorry.)

June 18 Grade Setting

Stuff From the 2001 Reading

June 9, 2001 - June 18, 2001

Clemson, South Carolina

Peter's Farewell Poem by Jackie Simms and Lew Acampora

Pictures from 2001 Reading:

Here are graphs of the points earned on each questions along with the average of the question. Peter showed these plots at the closing meeting in Clemson.

Thanks for the supportive comments about this page. One of the Readers, June Strohsahl, from Pine Tree High School in Longview, Texas has shared a new web site she has prepared for her classes. I thought others might be interested so I include it here. It might be worthwhile to include links to Readers web pages on this page, so if you would like to send that information I'll update as links arrive.

Web Site from June Strohsahl, from Pine Tree High School in Longview, Texas

* AP and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board which was not involved in the production of this Web Site.