<p>A few questions for those who are taking the course:</p>
<p>A few friends and I are independently studying comp sci AB this year under the guidance of our comp sci A teacher. So far, we've only covered Linked Lists, Stacks, and Queues. We're about to cover trees. Are we moving too slowly? </p>
<p>Also, can anyone recommend any good websites with good practice problems? We're using the Barrons book as our sole source of information (no txtbooks or anything). Thanks!</p>
<p>Whether or not you'r behind really depends what order you do things in. Generally speaking I'd say you're just fine with your pace.</p>
<p>A textbook isn't really required. A prep book tlel you all the cirricilum you need to know - you just need to be sure you're comfortable with it. Whether you do that by writing your code, or otherwise, is your choice.</p>
<p>I think you are way ahead right now. In my class, we just completed linked lists and are starting on Marine Biology. We don't cover stacks, queues, or trees until 2nd semester and at our pace we will have one full month to study for the AP test.</p>
<p>man, my compsci class is at classes. our teacher doesn't teach us anything</p>
<p>Phantom, my son is taking Comp Sci AB this year too, and he recommends the USACO website as a great place to get practice problems. "Java Methods" by Litvin is the textbook and it is excellent...he recommends that you and your freinds get a copy and go over it. S also asks if you have covered the basics like arrays, classes, methods, etc? If so then you are in fine shape as far as he can tell.</p>
<p>Good luck on the test!</p>
<p>Phantom, I'd say you're moving extremely quickly. My class doesn't follow the order of the Barron's book, and I don't know how much did last year, but so far this year we've only done recursion, Big-O efficiency plus quadratic sorts, searches, mergesort and quicksort, and catching and throwing exceptions. It sounds like the amount of material you've covered, although in a different order, is a lot more than that. So I wouldn't worry too much about your pace.</p>
<p>Personally having obtained a 5 on last year's AB exam I have nothing but dislike for Litvin's textbook. The prepbook is decent if you're looking a review (not learning), but the textbook is absolutely horrible - easily the worst text I've seen. So you may or may not like Litvin.</p>
<p>USACO is nice though.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I feel much better now. I'll check out USACO.</p>
<p>I ahve not started. how much catchup should I do?</p>