Tillie Sobek loves learning.
She voraciously consumes knowledge, whether it’s math, English or world history.
She has the receipts to prove her academic success. Tillie was one of 81 students in the Coeur d’Alene School District to achieve at least one perfect score on an Advanced Placement exam this spring, up from 64 last year — making this year’s performance an all-time high for the district.
“A five (score) is really exciting because I put in a lot of hard work throughout the school year,” said Tillie, who will be a junior this year at Lake City High School. “My teacher was guiding us through what the exam would be like and how we should take the exam.”
AP courses are more challenging than typical classes offered at the high school level. Students who score a three or better on an AP test may receive college credit for classes in the subject area the student masters. AP classes are also given more weight when calculating a student’s grade point average. The district’s Advanced Placement program is funded by levy dollars.
“Achieving a perfect five on these difficult tests is a remarkable accomplishment for our students, teachers and schools,” said Mike Nelson, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning. “These students have mastered college-level content with a perseverance and passion for learning that defines academic excellence in our schools.”
Students earned perfect scores across 16 subjects, including calculus, chemistry, world history, English language/literature and more. Several students earned multiple perfect scores, with six students achieving three or more perfect scores each.
Caleb Torgenson, an incoming Coeur d’Alene High School senior, earned four perfect scores in chemistry, English language and composition, pre-calculus and U.S. history.
Karsten Towery, who will be a junior at Coeur d’Alene next year, nabbed two perfect scores on her AP exams in pre-calculus and seminar. Seminar is a course that reflects the challenging demands of writing research papers in college.
“I love writing,” Karsten said. “I never knew that I was capable of writing a 10,000-word research paper. It was a lot of hard work.”
Karsten is an accomplished musician and a member of the Coeur d’Alene High swim team.
“I have always been driven to succeed,” she said. “It feels great getting perfect scores on my AP exams.”
Students took their AP exams in May. The results were recently announced. Tillie said she wasn’t shocked by the perfect score, thanks to her teacher, Jesse Affeldt, who teaches AP world history and AP European history at Lake City. Affeldt said AP testing is extremely rigorous.
“It’s a 50-60% pass rate globally,” Affeldt said. “It’s a high-stakes three-hour test that the students have to perform on. We cover a lot of content and teach them how to write historically.”
The AP world history course covers the period from 1200 A.D. to the present day. Affeldt focuses on detailed notes to help students learn.
“Mr. Affeldt makes every single class engaging,” Tillie said. “Sometimes we’re watching videos, sometimes we’re watching a slide show. I really like how he does more interactive stuff with us.”
Mackian Blomer, who will be a senior at Lake City, echoed the sentiment.
“He can spend an entire class telling an amazing story about history,” said Mackian, who also got a perfect score in world history. “He’s a great teacher.”
Blomer
Towery