In my high school, the AP Chem teacher is known to be a bad teacher in the sense that they only show 25% of the exam content and 75% content is self-studying. And that almost no one passes the exam in my school, yet it is crucial that I get a five for college credit that offers me 12 creds with lab if I get the 5. Essentially with self-studying, I bought the Barron’s AP Chem review books with the flash cards to self-study, how do I set up a proper schedule for studying AP chem? I did excellent in Chem 1 honors, yet I am very nervous with the AP chemistry and the potential doom to fail.
I never took AP Chemistry in high school, but I took Chem 1 and 2 with Labs at my school. Here’s my takeaways from the class:
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DO THE HOMEWORK AND EVERYTHING THAT’S BEEN ASSIGNED: all the points add up. Don’t skimp out on them. If your teacher gives extra credit, take advantage of that
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Practice, practice, practice! Go through the textbook, work out problems from each chapter. You can also go on college board and see if they have old AP Chem questions. There’s bound to be some questions that you can definitely do. Try this page: http://www.examswithsolutions.com/Subjects/chemistry_exams.html They got practice exams for subjects like Bio, Math, and Physics. Try them out. It doesn’t hurt.
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Make a list of what you’re not getting in the chapter. What’s confusing you? What do you understand? Sort them out. Work at the problems you don’t understand. Make sure it “clicks” before an exam.
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Don’t be afraid to ask for help! If you say your teacher is bad, go to extra help hours. See what s/he says about a certain concept (e.g. kinetics or thermochem), compare it with the textbook and what your classmates say.
AP Chemistry is a time-consuming course. Put you got into it and see what comes out in the end! I’ve had a lot of friends in that class and many of them worked really hard to get 4s or 5s. If you don’t get college credit, then just retake it in college. Same went for me and AP Biology, I had a bad teacher, but I learned the information I need for my Biology classes so that I’m most likely going to get an A in that class. Don’t put yourself down if you don’t get a 5. In fact, it might just work out for you in the end.
Hope this helps and best of luck! You can do it!
P.S.- If you PM me, I can email you chem exams from professors at my school