I am preparing for AP exam- Physics algebra and AB calculus.
which books are best to prepare at home- barron’s /kaplan /princeton’s. Is there any other book also apart from these which can be better?
How about the books for your classes?
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Are you self studying or taking the class? S24 took AP physics 1 last year and was able to get a 5 on the test without much studying. He just reviewed a few things from his textbook. It is better to take the class than to self study— colleges prefer that.
My kid found that the first step was to thoroughly understand the class material - do the work, if you miss something in homework or a test go back and figure out what you did wrong. Kid also watched the videos on the college board website. Usually sometime around spring break in March, kid would start watching a couple of videos each day. Usually they were just review, but if anything was unfamiliar then that topic could be researched and studied. I don’t think that there’s a huge difference between prep books, and we mostly used them for practice tests or a reference if needed. We used ‘5 Steps to a 5’ books when they were available for the subject. It could be more helpful to work through a book, though depending on your preferences.
As a homeschooler, we didn’t have an outside teacher guiding the preparation. What we found worked for us was to try a practice test in March to see what was missed. After finishing the prep videos, usually around 1-2 weeks before the test, we’d try another so that we knew if there were any last-minute gaps to fill in.
Some students will want a lot more time spent taking practice tests, but in our case we also do Science Olympiad so my kids have a lot of practice taking all kinds of tests. So, our focus was on making sure that the student understood the material and that we were clear on the grading rubric for free response questions. Especially if you think that time may be a factor, it’s important to figure out where the majority of the points come from. For instance, if you are running out of time, it may be better to set up 3 problems and define the terms rather than solve 2 to completion…or the reverse could be true, depending on the test.
Didn’t your AP instructor do that?
How did you fare in the class? Did they not use sample tests throughout the class?
I realize not every high school will have highly qualified educators - but my daughter took quite range of AP subjects, didn’t prepare for any of the exams, and the results confirmed that every single class had covered the respective subject comprehensively.