<p>I want to take AP Biology this year so I could get rid of any educational requirements in college, so I'm self-studying it (or going to start self-studying soon).</p>
<p>I heard that there were significant changes to the test. Since all the material I have for studying is from the internet, none of it is dated for 2012-2013.</p>
<p>Could someone provide a list of significant changes of new material that will be on the curriculum and old material that was removed from the curriculum?</p>
<p>I'm assuming you guys had AP Bio teachers who gave you a short overview of what changes to expect on the new revised exam.</p>
<p>Please don't just link me the exam description. The Exam Description is long, and I can't really tell what's new. They all look like things that were in the old study guides. I also won't know what's been removed from the exam description because it's not there obviously.</p>
<p>I also heard there was a greater emphasis on labs and practicals. What's that mean?</p>
<p>Thank you for any responses.</p>
<p>Honestly, I have no idea. Apparently, CB hasn’t released the official %s of each major topic for the new test. I only know the new format - the biggest change being 6 short answer questions - but not much else. Our AP Bio teacher has no idea about it either.</p>
<p>To be honest my bio teacher did not help at all. My school actually replaced our AP teacher with our Honors teacher so we just struggled through the year, and I’m definitely not ready for the ap exam ._.
Anyways to your question, although you don’t want to look at CB’s course description I suggest going to one of the big ideas and scrolling through (there will be scattered bullets that look like X’s throughout the overview of the Big Ideas). Those X’s will show what will not be needed for the exam (i.e. memorization of plant hormones and their effects). If you do a ctrl-F you can find all of them and read them (after finding one and copying and pasting the X)
The main changes to the exam is the number of written answer questions in the second half of the test. There will be I believe six grid-in questions as well. Also, the AP exam this year is focusing more on application and a thorough understand of the content, instead of memorization like previous years.</p>
<p>“Or going to start self-studying it soon.”</p>
<p>Lol, good luck. Someone obviously has never self-studied for an AP exam before.</p>
<p>And yeah theres the 4 big ideas that can be found on the College Board’s website.</p>
<p>@jadenio I self-studied for bio the weekend before the exam and got a 5 last year.
But it looks like that’s not going to be the case this year if the bio exam is more than just memorization, hah.</p>
<p>Start self-studying now. Just do it. Do what WritingonStars wrote and get cracking.
You have 16 days.</p>
<p>Haha yeah my teacher showed us a few example questions for the test, one of the questions was almost a full page of just data and text that you have to coordinate together and use what you know to come up with an answer. You REALLY have to understand the concepts and be able to apply them to the most random situations ever.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the advice.</p>
<p>Last year in my junior year, I self-studied for 3 APs. Although I admit the ones I took, Micro, Macro, Gov/Pol, were probably the easiest APs. At least the AP Bio scale gives a pretty lenient range for mistakes.</p>
<p>heyy everyone i’m currently a sophomore and i’ve taken bio 1 before and ended the year with a A+ with a near 100% score. My school doesn’t offer AP bio and offers IB instead, but I want to get some APs done before 11th grade. I’m thinking of taking AP Psych, AP Environmental Science and AP bio this may. I heard AP Psych and APES are pretty easy to handle but I’m just worried about Bio. I heard things have changed and before it was the easiest science because it was only memorization but now it’s not… 
Would it still be okay if I self-studied for it?? I have the Cliffs Bio Notes and am planning to study hard for the next 3 months… do you think it’ll be possible to get a 5?? How hard is the test?? Thank you :)</p>
<p>^ you can try but you’re probably not going to get a 5 lol. you need to actually do the labs. you’ll probably pass though</p>
<p>I haven’t taken the exam yet so i dont know the extent of labs on the exam but i do hear cliffs has an extensive portion dedicated to labs if you’re worried about that</p>