<p>Usually my school teaches AP classes well and at higher levels than necessary so the actual exams aren't much of a problem. However, this year they changed the AP Bio class curriculum since the exam changed and it's just not working at all.</p>
<p>There are no lectures whatsoever, and students are expected to read and know the material in advance to "discuss" it, and honestly the teachers don't help at all. There's also scientific article reading and "debates" based purely on a small set of articles.</p>
<p>The grades are always curved and test averages range from the 50s-70s and my teacher said that none of us will get a 5 on the AP exam at this point.</p>
<p>I'm just really worried about what to do, for the class itself and studying for the AP exam.</p>
<p>Memorize barron’s book -----> get 100% on AP exam</p>
<p>Yeah except AP Bio exam isn’t all about memorization anymore :/</p>
<p>The bio exam is relatively easier compared to previous years from my understanding. If you get/understand/know the concepts from beforehand, the new test should be fine</p>
<p>There is a smaller range of topics but you are expected to have a deeper understanding of the topics that you have to know. And the questions are applied knowledge rather than hard facts. My teacher purposely makes her tests harder than what the actual test will be like in order to prepare us (but then again, if the raw score averages are being around 47% then that probably hints that she’s overdoing it) but at least in previous years the curve for AP Bio was rather generous. A 66.7% average is a 5 so if you’re at least getting high C’s for raw scores on your teacher’s tests and assuming they’re not complete jokes I think you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>You really just have to sit down and memorize if you want a guaranteed good score. There really isn’t too much of a substitute for it. How much time you need to spend depends on your learning speed. </p>
<p>Also, the AP Exam is often much easier than many in-school classes. Just make sure you cover everything, even if it means losing some depth. Otherwise, an FRQ can blindside you.</p>