1 he students studied from a college chemistry textbook.

1 he students studied from a college chemistry textbook. The textbook was recommended by the advanced placement conference in Charlottesville and by other teachers. The text covered standard chemical principles.

In the morning sessions the students would bring to Mr. Patterson’s attention whatever problems they were having and then he would go over the topics in that chapter that he thought were most difficult.

A lot of this study involved the student’s determination to work through the material on his own.

“There was no argument about how much work they had to do or their grades because they all knew how difficult the goal was and that they had to work hard. The whole idea was to get ready for the exam in the spring,” Mr. Patterson said.

What the students attempted to do was to learn two years of chemistry in one year because they had to learn what would normally be covered in a high school chemistry class and then also learn what would be covered in a first year college course.

“At an advanced placement conference I went to the leader said it was impossible for students to do this in one year. But we did it here!” Mr. Patterson emphasized.

They finished covering new material the first week of April and spent the last month reviewing for the exam and took the exam on May 16. Review included taking trial exams. The testing service made available exams from previous years so the student could practice. Then before the real exam the students took a full scale practice exam and spent six hours on it. They took the exam, graded it, and went over it.

It was a high pressure situation because it was a timed exam. They found that was a big problem especially for two of the students. Just getting through the questions fast enough was difficult. They drilled and drilled on that and their timing improved.

“They had to work like crazy for the whole three hours,” Mr. Patter