<p>Okay so it's schedule time at my school, and I was considering taking AP Biology my senior year. Normally AP Bio has been a year long class, but next year its only going to be January- whenever the exam is. Im just curious if anyone here took it in a semester and how hard they thought it was vs. how hard it would have been year long etc. </p>
<p>I have no experience with the course as a half year (currently taking full year now). However, it’s an incredibly information-dense course. You should be prepared to do a lot of work if you have any intention of taking that class.</p>
<p>Taking it for a semester would be extremely hard. I even had to take a summer course, which covered 25% of the course, before the actual school year when we’d do the other 75%. It depends on how much time you have and how good you are at studying the material, but I wouldn’t recommend cramming it in a semester. </p>
<p>Hey, how hard is AP Bio. I am considering to take it sophomore year</p>
<p>It depends on your school’s schedule. Do you have a block schedule? If you only have four classes in the second semester (which means you are in the class around 90 minutes everyday), then you should be just fine. But if you have 7-8 classes the second semester on a traditional schedule with 45-60 minute classes, it’ll be really difficult to learn all the material in just a semester. </p>
<p>^ Agreed. It would be just rotten to take AP Bio in a semester without blocking unless you already knew everything.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure we have block schedule next year! They’re trying to switch over to 7-8 classes so they made all AP’s one semester this year. (((I’m not sure why that helps going to 7-8 classes but okay))) I’m just a little hesitant to take it when there’s so much information to be learned and the teacher won’t be used to teaching it so quickly. </p>
<p>I would recommend it wholeheartedly if it was a year-long course, but I’m not so sure about taking it in one semester. It’s very information-heavy (though not too difficult if you’ve gone up to Biology II-level work in the past), and though it’s perfectly doable, it will take a lot of studying.</p>
<p>The real question here, I guess, is “how much are you willing to work?”</p>
<p>My school does dual enrollment, so I took a biology course from the local college last year in one semester (Fall semester). Even though it technically wasn’t AP, I registered for the AP test and received a 5. It was pretty difficult considering I finished the course in January and the AP test wasn’t until May, but I think if you can commit to studying you should be fine with learning all of the Bio necessary in one semester. Since my school doesn’t offer AP courses, only dual enrollment, I can’t say for certain what it was like compared to what it would be like full year, but I would say you should be able to score well on the AP exam if you study hard.</p>
<p>From what I’ve researched, AP Bio is one of the toughest! </p>
<p>Wow. I could not imagine taking AP Bio in one semester. Then again I have no experience with blocking and I’ve never taken a one semester class, so…
If you think there will be enough classroom time to cover the material and you don’t mind covering a LOT of complex and dense material, then go ahead. Personally, I cannot sing the praises of that class enough. Just be prepared for a lot of work and studying- I know that my class (meeting for about 4 hours a week from September to the AP) only barely finished the material, so get ready to do some solo work if necessary.
ENJOY IT! It’s the most amazing class. </p>
<p>I’m not quite sure how that’s going to work as some of the labs may take days on days to finish… one semester would make it near impossible to jam all the information and the labs into your brain even with a block schedule. Expect a lot of self studying…</p>