<p>What's the difference between these two? My teacher said to take A, but someone else told me that A and AB are really similar. I'm pretty good at programming, but syntax is a little annoying, and we apparently haven't covered a lot of the stuff in AB. Could I self-study? I will have ilke 6 other APs though...</p>
<p>A = a joke
AB = a lot more interesting
Everything in A looks really easy once you start going into AB. Everything is different. AB requires knowing a lot more about inheritance and extending classes, running time of programs, abstract data types. Some of the MC questions are really difficult, especially some of the recursive ones which go what does this do. It is possible to self study it in a week if you are given the proper books and programs, and you have someone to ask if you get stuck. If you are a senior, take AB, it gets you twice the credit at almost every school.</p>
<p>Well, I looked at the AB topics and we haven't covered anything in it, while we're almost done with A. Is it easy to self-study? I started reading it and it seemed a little hard...</p>
<p>The AB test is much harder than the A test. But there are enough time to prepare for a 5.</p>
<p>Other than recursion (which is actually for both A and AB), list and binary tree are the two hardest subjects in the AB preparation. If you spend one week to learn List (ListNode, Iterator, ArrayList, LinkedList), and, at the end of the week, are comfortable in writing ListNode code, you'll have no problems finishing the self-study.</p>
<p>Examples of short ListNode program to write: getting sum from a list of Integers, removing the last node from a list, rotating/reversing a list, and inserting an integer into a sorted list.</p>
<p>The rest of AB subjects will take about 3~4 weeks to learn it well. (
Binary tree: 1 week; MBS environment part: 0.5~1 week; OOP, Big-O analysis, sorting, and the rest of the data structures: 2 weeks.</p>
<p>PM me your email address if you're interested to get PowerPoint slides.</p>
<p>Eh I decided against it. I'm taking 7 other APs, and even though none of them are particularly hard, I don't feel like studying much. Plus, it won't even help if I end up going to MIT.</p>