Can anyone give me any tips on self studying AP Chem? The only reason I am choosing to self study/possibly self study is because the teacher at my school is not competent. She is the teacher that taught me chem honors this past sophomore year, and it was horrendous. I failed every test and quiz second semester, and I know that it was not me. I am a very gifted and determined student. For the final I ended up making my own study guide teaching myself everything I didn’t understand and ended up getting an A. The way she teaches and her teaching environment is not very good, so I will not be taking her class.
Honestly I would recommend taking this class online if you could since you don’t like your teacher. AP Chem is not something I would go out without any in class experiences. Many of the prep books leave out important information that I only learned in class. And AP is nothing like honors chem. Basically chapter 1 is review of Chem honors and the rest of the year is completely new content.
The requirements for Northwestern’s HPME is AP Chem, and I’d rather not just get a general chemistry credit and it not be sufficient. I think I’m just going to learn the course in the next 2 years and take the placement exam at the university. Every student who took the course this past year at my school failed the exam, so even if I don’t do good on my own it’d be the same basically.
I just went through the same thing during sophomore year. I didn’t take the class because it wasn’t offered for sophomore year, but I ended up self studying AP Chem and I actually got a 5.
There are a lot math and concept problems, so I would recommend using the big Barron’s AP Chemistry book. It is like a textbook itself. Once you have covered all the concepts, use Princeton Review to review, try difficult problems, and take tests. The Princeton Review tests are really good.
The labs are very important and almost all the free response questions are based on that, so I would recommend getting a lab kit at home or buying a lab review notes book, and getting a real feel of all the labs.