May & June Newsletter - Orcas Island School District

Advanced Placement Class/Tests
Our high school students are taking Advanced Placement tests in May. These tests are scored on a 5
point scale with 5 being the highest grade. Students can earn college credit from most colleges with a
score of 3 or better. Some colleges increase the number of credits as the score increases toward 5.
Even students who do not do well enough on the tests to earn the college credit and have to take the
class in college report that they feel better prepared because of their work in AP classes.
This May, students are taking tests in AP European History, AP English, AP US History, AP Biology, AP
Physics, AP Human Geography, and AP Calculus. Good luck to those hard working students and to
their teachers and parents who have suffered right along with them.
Explore Tests for 8 TH
We are planning to give the Explore tests to 8 th grade students to provide information to our students,
parents and staff about the performance of our students as compared to students across the US. We
are using the Explore Test because it has good information about student performance in different
subject areas and it contains a student interest inventory to help students “explore” possible career
interests. The test results will be sent home to parents and shared with students as soon as they
become available to us.
8 th grade students will be taking the Explore tests later in May. The testing will take a few hours and
it will be timed. This will give the students a testing experience more like the PLAN, PSAT or SAT or
ACT which students will take later in high school. The Explore test is created by the same company
that produces the PLAN test and the ACT college entrance exam. We offer our 10 th graders the
PLAN test which is the pre-ACT test and which gives our students good information about their
possible career interests and their performance with students across the country.
For more information about the tests, please go to http://www.actstudent.org/explore/
Or call Barbara Kline or Nancy Wrightsman at 376-2287.