Science

Eleventh grade is the Advanced Placement year for most students who intend to study a science at college. The default course is Physics in the traditional sequence, but the more consequential choice is whether a student takes AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics 1 or AP Environmental Science alongside or instead of it.

AP courses are taught at introductory college level and assessed by an exam in May whose free-response section rewards justified reasoning rather than correct arithmetic alone. Because eleventh grade results are the last full year colleges see before applications, this is where science grades carry the most weight. The Biology, Chemistry and Physics pages for this grade cover each course in detail.