Students with a variety of math backgrounds can take AP Statistics including Pre-Calculus and Applications of Advanced Mathematics; however, most students who take the class are seniors coming from a Calculus class. For senior Vincent Lim, a student’s experience in the class primarily depends on the teacher they have. Regardless of the teacher though, students have to prepare for weekly assessments.
“Stats can be really easy or can be really hard,” Lim said. “So if math might be a little bit more tough for you, then be prepared to put a little bit more effort in but if math is typically pretty easy or doable, then you should be able to expect a pretty chill course.”
Although Lim spends an average of 10 minutes for the class on an average day and 20 minutes before a test, he admits the class can be more time consuming for people who lack confidence in math, especially when analyzing and pulling conclusions from sets of data.
“The content can get kind of tricky sometimes,” Lim said. “People like to joke that [Stats is] fake math and it's humanities. In that way you have to do a lot more reading and writing than you have to do in other [math] classes. And in that way, it's a lot more annoying and tedious.”
Despite an increase in writing in AP Statistics, Lim finds many topics easy and interesting, such as hypothesis testing; the class was overall very easy for Lim as well.