Salt Lake City—A student at City Academy charter school in Salt Lake City has been awarded the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Award for receiving the highest mark in the U.S. for the Cambridge IGCSE History June 2017 exams. Jeremiah Chapman was a 10th grader at City Academy last spring when he took the exam (he’s now a 16-year-old junior at the school).
Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education pre-advanced level courses (IGCSE) provide students from 9th grade onward with preparation for advanced-level study in high school and in college.
In the process of achieving the highest mark, Chapman took two two-hour essay exams each consisting of three three-part questions. His teacher, Gareth Orr, said that an example of one three-part exam question would be: 1) What were Hitler’s foreign policy aims?; 2) Why did Hitler and Stalin sign the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact? and; 3) “The policy of appeasement was the most important reason why war began in 1939.” How far do you agree with this statement?
The Cambridge IGCSE program is part of Cambridge Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The University of Cambridge was founded in 1209 and is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s fourth-oldest surviving university. According to the Cambridge International website, “Cambridge IGCSE is the world’s most popular international qualification for 14 to 16 year olds. It is taken in over 145 countries and in more than 6,100 schools around the world.”
Cambridge International Advanced-level qualifications are recognized and accepted in a similar manner as Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) by universities, colleges, and employers in the United States and around the world as proof of high academic achievement. In fact, Newsweek magazine includes Cambridge International Exams in its criteria for ranking the top high schools in the United States.
City Academy is currently the only school in Utah to offer students the Cambridge IGCSE program and Cambridge Advanced-level courses. City Academy founder and executive director, Dr. Sonia Woodbury, Ph.D., said, “Most educators agree that Cambridge Assessment International Education provides more authentic forms of testing. Educators have found that students who are part of the IGCSE program are more likely to take advanced-level classes in high school and college. Cambridge International Examinations’ Advanced-level early colleges courses (A-levels) offer a distinctive alternative to traditional AP or IB courses because they demand higher levels of analytical thinking. Exams for these courses are primarily essay and performance-based. By comparison, AP and IB testing is primarily multiple choice.”
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