AP Statistics, taught by Mr. Thompson and Mr. Valitutto, is a yearlong statistics course taught at the college level. The course material focuses on gathering data, reflecting them on to graphs, and interpreting the significance and the meaning behind them.

AP Statistics is different from other math courses in a sense that the solutions are not completely “black or white.” Unlike most traditional math classes where students use their knowledge to get an answer, AP Statistics require students to present their interpretation of the given data. It allows the students to “relate math to other various fields of study,” says David Han’15, a student currently enrolled in AP Statistics.

With an average AP score about 4.1, Mr. Thompson’s primary goal in the course is for the students “to earn the highest grade possible, and the grade that they deserve,” and not underperform given the skills they have learned throughout the year. Also, instead of plugging in numbers into formulas and solving equations, Mr. Thompson’s main focus is solving practical, “real life problems” to show how math can be used in our lives.

Mr. Thompson teaches the class to be “confident with making assumptions” of the data even though they may “be flawed sometimes” and “analyze the impact of the interpretation” when they are wrong. As a subject that relies solely on the given data, “nothing can be absolute” and is more about “how confident we are in making the observations,” says Mr. Thompson.

Something Mr. Thompson likes about the course is that everything the course handles is real. Students are “more interested in the subject” after they realize what they are learning practical knowledge, and have greater focus when solving real-life oriented problems.

According to Han, AP Statistics class has “enthusiasm and the active, friendly mood of the class” and shows students how they improve “both mathematically and analytically.”