Hey everyone! How are you all? Hope you’re all well! I noticed threads for this class from previous years but couldn’t find one for the upcoming school year, so I decided to create one! Good luck in the class this upcoming year! How is everyone’s summer assignment if you have one? Will you guys be using AP test prep books? I’m going to pick Pearson test prep series for AP Biology.
Oops I messed up the title. It should’ve been AP Biology Thread 2018-2019
I’m actually self-studying for the exam, so I don’t have any summer assignments that I have to worry about doing. As for prep books, I’m using the Barron’s for AP Biology.
Oh cool. I heard the Pearson test prep is better than Barron’s but maybe that’s just me. At any rate I’m gonna get both.
If anyone has any questions, I am here to help!! Got high A’s both semesters of AP Bio last year, 4 on the AP test 
Hi @mm1572019 !
What prep books did you use?
Do you have any study or (in class) test taking tips?
How much homework did you get?
Hey! So I used the Pearson Education Test Prep Series book (its a brown cover) that my school gave us. I thought this book was really helpful and had all of the diagrams you could ever need!!
For studying, I would recommend finding a study group! Especially for topics like immunology, which I thought was super super hard, It was helpful to talk it over with people. In our class, we got notes packets and never had to take plain handwritten notes, but if you end up having to, I think you should have the textbook on hand so you can follow along in that too and understand diagrams and processes. On the majority of the tests I took, there are barely any questions that are straight memorization (and my teacher’s tests were like 75% of previous AP questions). You should know the material inside and out, being able to relate the topics to each other. I sometimes made word webs, so you relate each vocab word to another word (like a simple example could be ** population - made of only one – species**
I didn’t think I had a tremendous amount of homework. I would say most of the homework was online quizzes on the chapters, called MasteringBio (you can find the answers on quizlet!!!) and take home quizzes (also on quizlet). Other things included lab write ups. They aren’t like the normal like chemistry lab write ups with your procedure and whatever, they were only analysis questions. Also, my teacher assigned many projects. One was a cell story, where we had to include 20 different parts of a cell in a story (I wrote about a queen in a castle). Another project was a metaphor for protein synthesis, where my group related it to phineas and ferb when they built a roller coaster. The topics I picked for the projects seem fun, but you have to put a lot of hard work into it – I did, and I got over 100% on all projects (my teacher gave EC for creativity and memes) THIS IS NOT A BLOW OFF CLASS!!! you need to thoroughly analyze data and answers to questions.
Hope this helps!! If you need anything else answered, I’m here!!
Sorry, I forgot a study tip! Write a summary paragraph of the chapter! You don’t need to include every single vocab word, but most is good I copy and pasted one about the ETC, the easiest and shortest topic I could find one of my paragraphs on, below. You might not know all of the words now, but you should be able to get a general idea. On this paragraph, I got full points! Most are much longer than this and require more explanation between terms.
Firstly, pyruvate is created through glycolysis. The pyruvate molecules bind with acetyl CoA and go through the Kreb’s Cycle (1) where there is a net production of 2 ATP. This cycle sends NADH (2) and FADH2 (3) to the electron transport chain (4). This process occurs within the cristae of the mitochondria (5) and between the membranes. For the first proton pump (6), which is a transmembrane protein within the inner membrane (7) NADH is oxidized (8) to NAD+. The NAD+ stays within the matrix (9) of the mitochondria while the H+ (10) ion that was released is actively transported (11) into the intermembrane space (12). FADH2 is oxidized into FAD+ and again, the H+ ion, passes through a second proton pump through active transport and the H+ stays in the intermembrane space. In the third proton pump, O2 (13) is taken from the matrix and is reduced (14) by 2 electrons (15). This creates H2O (16) as a waste product. From all of the H+ ions that are building up in the intermembrane space, the H+ ions go through ATP synthase (17) through passive transport (18). This transport of H+ ions across the membrane is also known as chemiosmosis (19), as the ions are going down their electrochemical gradients. This concentration gradient creates a proton motive force (20), which is where there is a high build up of energy in protons and they have the availability to do work as they diffuse. As the protons diffuse, ATP synthase forces a phosphate group to ADP, synthesizing ATP. This process is known as oxidative phosphorylation (21).
Haha I feel now that I’ve read that, il I’m not prepared but i just started the course a few weeks ago so hopefully I will. During the course, did you ever take any practice AP tests to see what you did(n’t) know? If so, how far inti the course were you when you felt comfortable with all the material? Thanks!
@Plina10
Personally in my class, all of our unit exams contained previous AP questions. At the end of the semester for the semester exam, we were given a full practice test with questions we’d never seen before, minus the stuff we still had to learn, and most people did okay-ish. So I guess halfway through is around the time when I felt comfortable with the material, to answer your question.
@itachasuke can you please share your unit exams and full practice test? Will be helpful for me to practice too as did not got anything like that in our school.
Thanks
Does anyone have any predictions for FRQ?
wait really?! wow. how do you know though ??
thanks dude!
jdlipari11@gmail.com
also does anyone know about what percentage you need to get a 4?
@RocBud …l’m thinking around 60 percent?
Also, I’m really worried about not doing well on this exam. Any tips?