Long Island Regents Prep is excited to be participating in the Suffolk Spring College Fair, sponsored by WesteSuffolk Counselors’ Association. The College Fair will take place on Monday, April 22, from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM. Students will be able to visit representatives from dozens of colleges and register for AP and Regents review courses offered by Long Island Regents Prep. In addition, we’ll be raffling off a free Advanced Placement or Regents review course and offering discounted on-site registration! Please stop by our booth to find out more about our courses! Here are the details:
Suffolk Spring College Fair
Monday, April 22, 2013
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Huntington Hilton Hotel, Melville NY
Directions: Take Long Island Expressway East to Exit 49S (Rte 110 South / Broadhollow Rd.) Turn Right at end of ramp onto Rt. 110 S / Broadhollow Road. Proceed 2 miles to the corner of Spagnoli Rd and Broadhollow Rd and the hotel is on the right.
A combined version of our two most recent blog entries about Advanced Placement exams is featured on the Farmingdale Patch website. You can read it here: Free Online Resources for AP Review
Since the Advanced Placement exams are only about a month away, we are providing some free online resources to help students prepare for their exams. Below are links to general and subject-specific AP review materials. In addition, for more info about our AP review courses or to register online, visit the Long Island Regents Prep website. Good luck!
General AP Review Resources
College Board AP Practice Questions – Since the College Board designs these exams, you may want to check out this site first. It offers exam overviews and practice questions from previous exams.
AP Study Notes – This site features course outlines, notes, vocabulary, and practice tests for several AP courses, with more being released in the coming weeks.
Springtime is nearly upon us, and many high school seniors are eagerly awaiting news from colleges regarding admissions and financial aid. High school students aiming for admission into elite colleges often enroll in Advanced Placement courses with the hope of burnishing their transcripts and applications, preparing for rigorous college-level coursework, and earning college credit for passing scores on the A.P. exams. Recently, however, colleges and universities have begun reconsidering whether to give credits for Advanced Placement courses. For example, earlier this year, Dartmouth College announced that it would no longer give college credit for high scores on Advanced Placement exams. According to the New York Times, this change—a response to the concern that high school A.P. classes “are not as rigorous as college courses”—will begin with the class of 2018, affecting those who graduate high school next year.
Not unexpectedly, the College Board has decried this decision, maintaining that Advanced Placement courses expose students to, and thus prepare them for, college-level work. According to the College Board’s recent AP Report to the Nation, “more high school graduates are participating—and succeeding—in college-level AP courses and exams than ever before.” College Board president David Coleman said, “By exposing students to college-level work while still in high school, Advanced Placement dramatically improves college completion rates,” and he applauded educators who have worked to bring Advanced Placement courses to more students in more schools around the country. Findings from the report indicated,
· The number of high school graduates taking AP Exams increased to 954,070, (32.4%), up from 904,794 (30.2%) among the class of 2011 and 471,404 (18.0%) in 2002 among the class of 2002.
· The number of high school graduates scoring a 3 or higher increased to 573,472 (19.5%), up from 541,000 (18.1%) among the class of 2011 and 305,098 (11.6%) among the class of 2002.
Whether these numbers represent better preparation for college and the workplace is, of course, up for debate, but they do signal a clear rise in the importance of Advanced Placement courses at the high-school level, even if colleges doubt the academic rigor of such courses.
In New York State, the statistics mirror the national trends, as more students continue to enroll and succeed in Advanced Placement Exams. That is why Long Island Regents Prep is now offering one-day Advanced Placement Review Courses at Farmingdale State College on May 5, 2013. Visit liregentsprep.wpengine.comfor more information and to register for courses.
Some people have contacted us regarding Regents review classes for the upcoming January Regents exams. Unfortunately, we only offer Regents prep courses for the June exams, but there are plenty of websites for content review and practice questions, including
Regentsprep.org – Offering practice questions and other review materials, the goal of this nonprofit site is to help high school students meet the New York State Regents requirements in English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.
Regents Review 2.0 – This site provides video review sessions for all Regents exams.
NYSED Regents Exams – The official New York State Education Department website has a digital archive of past regents exams.
Long Island Regents Prep Announces 2013 Regents and AP Review Class Schedule
Long Island Regents Prep has announced its 2013 course schedule. Review classes for the New York State Regents Exams will take place June 8th, 9th, and 15that Farmingdale State College. In addition, after helping hundreds of students from Nassau and Suffolk counties and New York City excel on the Regents exams over the past several years, Long Island Regents Prep has decided to begin offering Advanced Placement review classes, which are scheduled for May 5th. May 5, 2013 – AP Review Classes
United States History
World History
European History
US Government and Politics
Psychology
Calculus AB
Biology
Physics B
Chemistry
Environmental Science
June 8, 2013 – Regents Review Classes
Living Environment
Earth Science
Chemistry
Physics
Global History and Geography
United States History and Government
Integrated Algebra
Algebra 2/Trigonometry
Geometry
June 9, 2013 – Regents Review Classes
Living Environment
Earth Science
Chemistry
Physics
Global History and Geography
United States History and Government
Integrated Algebra
Algebra 2/Trigonometry
Geometry
June 15, 2013 – Regents Review Classes
Chemistry
Geometry
All classes are taught by experienced, highly qualified, New York State certified teachers in comfortable, state-of-the-art classrooms on the campus of Farmingdale State College, a State University of New York (SUNY) institution of higher learning.
Long Island Regents Prep is owned and operated by three current high school teachers who understand the importance of the Regents and AP examinations and the pressure that high-stakes tests place on students. With this in mind, they have created clear, concise, six-hour review courses that provide students with the content, skills, and confidence they need to excel on their Regents and Advanced Placement exams. Students can register online quickly, easily, and safely by visiting http://liregentsprep.wpengine.com.
What: Review courses for Regents and Advanced Placement exams
Where: Farmingdale State College (Gleeson Hall)
2350 Broad Hollow Road
Farmingdale, NY 11735
When: AP Review Classes – May 5, 2013 (9:00AM – 4:00PM)
We are excited to announce that Long Island Regents Prep will begin offering Advanced Placement review courses in spring 2013. Due to the success of our Regents review program, and in response to the positive feedback we’ve received from parents and students, we are expanding our review course catalog to include the following AP subjects:
United States History
World History
European History
US Government and Politics
Psychology
Calculus AB
Biology
Physics B
Chemistry
Environmental Science
As with our Regents prep classes, AP review classes will be one-day, six-hour sessions held at Farmingdale State College. Course dates and schedule will be announced shortly after the new year. In the meantime, visit Long Island Regents Prep for more information and to join our email list. Also, find us on Twitter @RegentsPrep and on Facebook.
It’s hard to believe that the August Regents Exams begin in only ten days! Didn’t we just leave school for summer break? For those of you taking a test next week, here’s the August Regents schedule. RCT exams are also included. August 2012 Regents Examination Schedule Thursday, August 16 – 8:30 a.m.
Even though school’s out and Long Island Regents Prep doesn’t offer summer review courses, there are still a number of online resources. In an older entry, we posted online resources for taking practice Regents exams. Recently, in a blog entry called Hit the Web, Staten Island Live listed more websites you can use to review. You can even purchase Regents Review apps for your iPhone. There are a number of resources at your disposal, just make sure you study. Good luck!
According to the National Council for Social Studies, the main purpose of social studies education is to provide students with the “content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values necessary for fulfilling the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy.” In general, it is the goal of public education to prepare students to live in our democratic society, but it is specifically the province of social studies education to provide students with the skills and knowledge to participate fully in all levels of society, from local to global. Given the importance of social studies, it seems surprising that the New York State Board of Regents is thinking about making the Global History and Geography Regents exam optional. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, NYS Education Commissioner John King said, “There’s certainly going to be a lot of jobs in the future in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and this new pathway will encourage districts and schools to create additional opportunities for their students to pursue those areas.” While this might be true, King and the Board of Regents fail to realize the importance of learning and understanding global events in our increasingly interconnected world.
Currently, New York State requires students to pass two social studies Regents exams, one on Global History and Geography and another on United States History and Government. Despite their flaws, namely the reductionist nature of requiring students to demonstrate their knowledge of complex national and international issues through series of multiple choice questions and short essays, these social studies exams require schools to focus on citizenship education, without which students would be ill-prepared to participate fully and competently in a democratic society.
The Global History and Geography Regents exam, a three-hour test, includes fifty multiple-choice questions and two essays, one thematic essay question and document-based essay question (DBQ). This exam, usually taken in 10th grade, assesses students on two years of global history content and includes the following topics: The Ancient World (Ancient Civilizations of Asia, Africa and Europe); Expanding Zones of Exchange and Encounter (from the Gupta Empire to the Crusades); Global Interaction (the interaction of the Japanese, Mongol and African Civilizations, and the Renaissance); The First Global Age (the Ming, Ottoman, Spanish, Portuguese and Mesoamerican empires); Age of Revolution (the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, political revolution, nationalism, industrialism and imperialism); Crisis and Achievement (World War I, the Russian Revolution, rise of dictatorships in Europe, the rise of nationalism in Asia and the Middle East, and how World War II affected the world); 20th Century Since 1945; and Global Connections and Interactions (overpopulation, urbanization, globalization, ethnic rivalry and other economic and political issues).
The United States History and Government Regents exam is the same length and format as the Global Regents exam, but it is typically taken at the end of 11th grade. The U.S. history course and exam include the following content: Colonial America, Constitutional Foundations, the Bill of Rights, basic democratic structure and constitutional principles, federalism, sectionalism, slavery, the Age of Jackson, antebellum reform movements (e.g., Abolitionism), the Civil War, Reconstruction, Industrialization, the New South, the Rise of Industry, Business and Labor, urbanization, Social Darwinism, arts and literature, the changing patterns of immigration, the Last Frontier, Agrarian Protest, the Progressive Movement, Women’s Suffrage, imperialism, World War I, the 1920s and return to “normalcy,” the Great Depression and the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, postwar America, Civil Rights, Kennedy’s New Frontier, Johnson’s Great Society, the Vietnam War, Nixon, Reagan and the Conservative Ascendancy, and a study of 21st Century domestic issues, foreign policy, economic and political issues.
As social studies teachers, we understand the importance of this subject and hope that the NYS Board of Regents will decide to keep both exams mandatory for graduation to ensure that students continue to learn the skills and content associated with citizenship education. Additionally, regardless of the Board’s decision, we will continue to offer review classes for both social studies Regents exams.
Why do we need math? When I was in high school, I remember asking myself and my teachers that question. Today, some people argue that computer technology has rendered math classes obsolete. Actually, just the opposite has happened. According to Steven D. Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics, “In the past, one could get by on intuition and experience. Times have changed. Today, the name of the game is data.” In other words, today’s digital world requires us to sift through piles of information everyday, and mathematical problem-solving skills can help us make sense of everything. The website WeUseMath.org states, “More and more, math is an essential tool to survive in today’s world. Math is a powerful tool for understanding the world, and almost everyone—from advertising agencies to doctors, from retailers to builders—who doesn’t want to be left behind is using math to do their job better and to get ahead in the world.”
In New York State, students must earn at least three credits and pass at least one Regents Exam in mathematics to receive a Regents diploma. To graduate with honors, or advanced designation, students must pass all three math Regents Exams. Below is a description of the NYS Regents Examinations in math. Each test is three hours long and includes a combination of multiple choice and open-ended questions.
The Integrated Algebra Regents exam consists of four parts: one multiple-choice section and three open-ended sections, each with three questions for which you must show your work. Graphing calculators are required for the Integrated Algebra examination, and the test booklet includes a reference sheet containing formulas. The Integrated Algebra curriculum covers most of the topics previously included in Math A, except for some aspects of geometry, locus, geometric constructions, and combinations. In addition to topics on number theory, operations, variables and expressions, equations and inequalities, trigonometric functions, and coordinate geometry, Integrated Algebra also includes an introduction to sets, functions, lines of best fit, and exponential growth and decay.
The Geometry Regents exam consists of four parts: one multiple-choice section and three open-ended sections, for which you must show your work. Graphing calculators are required for the Geometry examination, and the test booklet includes a reference sheet containing formulas. The Geometry curriculum includes most of the topics previously included in the geometry units for Math A and Math B. In addition to covering geometric relationships, constructions, locus, informal and formal proofs, transformational geometry, and coordinate geometry, it also includes some additional geometry topics such as midpoint and concurrency theorems, similarity theorems, logical connectives, and aspects of solid geometry including parallel and perpendicular planes.
The Algebra 2/Trigonometry Regents exam consists of four parts: one multiple-choice section and three open-ended sections, for which you must show your work. Graphing calculators are required for the Algebra 2/Trig examination, and the test booklet includes a reference sheet containing formulas. The Algebra 2/ Trigonometry curriculum in covers the following topics: algebraic operations with fractions and radicals; operations with real and complex numbers; factoring; solving quadratic equations; solving systems of equations; transformations and functions; linear, quadratic, logarithmic, exponential, and trigonometric functions and their graphs; trigonometric equations and laws; probability; statistics (including normal curve; fitting a line or curve to data using least squares regression); scatter plots; correlation coefficient; series and sequences.
Since the Advanced Placement exams are only about a month away, we are providing some free online resources to help students prepare for their exams. Below are links to general and subject-specific AP review materials. In addition, for more info about our AP review courses or to register online, visit the Long Island Regents Prep website. Good luck!