I talk about the importance of referencing the CED all the time. What that actually means is the importance of understanding and interpreting the TOPIC LOs and their associated Essential Knowledge statements. The rest of the the CED (skills, CB propaganda, educational BS, science practices etc.) you can very safely throw in into the trash where it all belongs.

There may be an AP teacher who has given the CED more attention that I have over the years, but I doubt it. Does that mean that I have it committed to memory? No. Does that mean that you may have a slightly different interpretation on some parts? Yes. But either way, I have a pretty good understanding of what it says about what you need to deliver in an AP Chemistry course.

In some cases things are straightforward, in others that word ‘interpretation’ looms large, and I’ve written about that before. Today I was reminded of another thing that can matter, an individual, perhaps seemingly innocuous, SINGLE word.

In a recent AP Chemistry Teacher FB discussion the distinction between the accuracy of average bond energies and enthalpy data given for specific compounds was brought up. That distinction appears directly in one of my UNIT 6 Tasks. It was an important concept in A level Chemistry back in the day (no idea about now), and I suspect it’s largely irrelevant to AP, BUT I left it in because of 6.7.A.2 that uses the word “estimated”. That word is not repeated in 6.8 simply because it does not apply there.

As I noted in the post linked above, you won’t necessarily find very specific phrases in the CED such as “combustion analysis” or, in this case, “compare average bond enthalpy values to combustion data”, BUT that doesn’t mean that those things aren’t in play. You have to know that document inside and out to really truly understand what may or may not be examined.

In this case it’s that single word, ‘estimated’ and its inclusion, that leads me to leave the Task question about the comparative accuracy of the two data sets in my notes. A single word in the CED just might make a difference, and that level of inspection and understanding of the CED is where you need to be in order to deliver the highest level of service to your students.