@BunnyMonster Crash course as in, by John Green (or his twin)? Do you suggest Bozeman or no?
I was actually thinking of doing the grid ins first but then I was also worried that they would take too much time away. As a result, I could get a lower score even with the advantage of guessing.
Is Barrons really contain that much extraneous information? I thought it didn’t have enough lol. awk.
Since you didn’t use your 10 minute of reading period, did you just read through everything as you went?
How is everyone preparing from today until the exam day? I think I’ll read through the barrons book once through… do you think it’s worth it to watch through the bozeman videos? I feel I would forget most of the materials – I think I’ll just use it as a refresher for the labs?
@sjwon3789 Yes Crash Course by Hank Green. My friends and teacher liked Bozeman, but imo he’s pretty boring and his videos are much longer than the Crash Course ones. When marathoning videos the length makes a big difference. If you can’t do calculations for heredity, his videos on that are pretty good though. I guess it depends on the topic, but overall I didn’t watch Bozeman unless necessary.
That’s a legitimate concern, but the grid ins were very simple. Last year, one of them literally asked us to subtract like 6 from 8 (or something similar to that). I think most took less time than reading a passage + answering its respective question(s).
Barrons has a ton of info. For the old format, which was more information/detail based, it would be fine, but for the new format, it’s seriously overkill on the details. You’re not going to do worse reading it, but with 1 week left I think you’re better off doing something else.
Yep, that’s exactly what I did. Didn’t do much planning before answering-- just started writing right away.
@BunnyMonster Do you think CliffNotes is fine? I hear it’s good but I haven’t heard it from lots of students. I hear no one using PR too.
Will Barrons actually take me that long? I was thinking of looking through the difficult topics in one day, and the easy/simple topics in combinations of three per day. There’s a total of 16 topics.
@sjwon3789 I didn’t use CliffNotes and I don’t know anybody irl that did, so I can’t say much about it. I’ve heard bad things about PR though. You don’t need many test prep books, they all say basically the same thing anyway.
Honestly, reading Barrons is up to you. I thought it was unnecessarily tedious, but if you have the time (and the willpower!) then more power to you! 
Again, I didn’t finish the book and I didn’t take any practice tests. Assuming you’re pretty well versed in biological concepts already from class, I think you’ll be surprised when you take the test because there’s really not that much information being tested.
One more thing: if you review anything, make sure to review ecology.
Hi everyone, so I’ll be taking the AP biology test this may and I’m very very nervous! I read some other discussions online about the new test format and how some people use Cliff’s or Barron’s books to study. But I’m kind of in between the two books and even if I choose one of them, I don’t know if the information will be enough to get a 5 on the test. Also, if there is anybody in the last two years who took the revised AP test, do you have any suggestions or tactics to study for the last month of the test? Thanks! (all comments are welcome)
Hi guys,
I’m pretty freaked out for the ap bio exam, especially since there has been so many less people getting 5s after the format changed. I have 2 questions:
Just a sidenote, I think I do pretty well on the grid ins and free response, it’s just the multiple choice that’s giving me trouble…
@sjwon3789 I’m reading Barrons and doing all the chapters’ questions and FRQs + the practice tests from now until Sunday. Also watching certain Bozeman Science videos and Crash Course ones my teacher assigns. I’m hoping to re-learn a year’s worth of information in a week lol.
I’m not trying to be condescending- I’m genuinely curious: why do people want to know the cutoff for a 5 (or 4 or 3)? Regardless of the cutoff, wouldn’t you try your best anyway?
I found a website last year, when I was taking the test, that came from Trevor Packer. It listed the cutoff at 82.
Hi,
so I took the SAT Bio (the M one) last weekend and it was my first time…
To be honest, I was actually surprised because the test was really different from AP Bio (btw im taking AP Bio this next week too) I don’t think I did that well ^^;;
From what I remember the SAT Bio test had a lot of questions that were factual based as in raw facts… (AP bio has Qs that are more critical reading based i guess…)
Some questions I encountered in the SAT bio were like:
In overall, it was kind of hard for me because it was factual based… If you want to study and take the SAT Bio you must know the small details (human body, animal phyla & characteristics, etc)
By the way, I am using the Barrons AP Biology book for AP and SAT. The extraneous topics in the Barrons book really helped me for the SAT.
So you don’t over stress yourself about having to guess on one question. If I know what the cut off is, I’m less likely to freak out about not knowing a question or 3. I can be like “I’m still going to do good.” I generally like to know how well I’ll do before I take any tests
The score breaks from 2013:
5 - 78
4 - 64
3 - 45
2 - 26
So since the AP biology exam is coming up, I’ve been trying to gage the scoring for the test. I’ve been researching but I can’t find anything that discusses what you need to get on the multiple choice and the free response to get a 5 because everything is outdated. Does anyone know of anywhere that could give me this information (about the new, updated scoring from 2013)?
This is a practice exam for the 2012 school yr by the College Board. (WARNING: This is outdated, but is the only full length exam available)
http://zelenskyap.■■■■■■■■■■/uploads/1/8/9/2/18922395/ap_bio_answers_with_explanationspdf.pdf
Edit: 2013 version
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-biology-course-and-exam-description.pdf
@skieurope what is it out of? 78/x?
@BunnyMonster Would you recommend extensive review of body systems/anatomy? We barely finished the material in my class, we rushed through anatomy last week
are those scores out of 100??? holy crap
its probably percentage- about 78 to 79 percent correct out of the 63 multiple choice questions
@TodaysEinstein Percentage, so out of 100.