AP Scheduling Question

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
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<p>Hello there ! I had a question regarding AP's and scheduling. At my High School they only let students take AP's in their Jr and Sr years. They also attempt to dissuade students from taking the AP classes because they enforce how extremely rigorous they are. But yet as I browse the forums here I see people saying they have taken multiple AP's in their Sophomore and in some rare instances, in their Freshman years. Now is it possible that the courses are over-hyped at my school or are the people on this forum just really really smart and all able to get 5's on their AP exams. </p>

<p>I was considering taking AP english language, APUSH and AP Bio next year in my Jr. year and I was wondering if these classes are extremely difficult as many teachers have told me, or if it is a scare tactic to save the school some money by having to purchase less exams?</p>

<p>Thanks for any and all input</p>

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<p>hmm.. well my school only let you take AP world sophomore year (if you're chosen for the class), and nothing freshman year.</p>

<p>Junior year, I took USH, Eng Lang, and Biology- nothing else. My school reccomends taking no more than two in junior year, but I defied that, haha. But I really think it depends on the school, to judge how difficult the classes are. For me, everything worked out fine. My USH workload was torture, but we did nothing in Eng Lang, and although we had a lot of tests in bio, we never got homework, and the class was fun.</p>

<p>Difficulty? I found some of my non-AP classes harder than my AP classes (namely physics and at times honors pre calc)</p>

<p>For the exams- I received a five in USH and Bio, and a 4 in Eng Lang. </p>

<p>All in all, I say you should be fine taking these three classes- the hype that your school seems to try to get across may be a bit much. I, personally ended up loving American history (I always hated history), as well as biology after taking these classes. I don't regret it at all. Also, I am not one of those crazy CC'ers that seems to do amazing in anything and everything.</p>

<p>A long response, but I hope I helped :-)</p>

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<p>No, please long responses are the best responses :) But yeah, Im not worried at all about English, I just have always been good at it so that isn't my main concern. Im more worried about all of the memorization in Bio and USH. Im also taking French 4 (maybe Honors) and regular Pre-Calc because Math is my weakest subject. The one advantage of taking these AP classes is that in my Soph year I had the worst teachers in the world, some of my teachers really shouldn't ever teach again. But there is only 1 teacher for each AP and I happen to have had some of these teachers before and I personally like the two that I have had before, which removes the possibility of just having a crappy teacher. And regarding the exam's, did you know anything about the subject before going into the class? How much did you learn about the subject in class and how much did you have to learn on your own, and last but not least how hard did you study for the exams?</p>

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<p>I'm glad you liked my long response- here's a longer one :-)</p>

<p>I took an honors-type (its part of a science program at my school) biology class in 9th grade. I hated biology, and I struggled that entire year, yet I took AP bio because- actually I didn't have much reason to.</p>

<p>For USH- I had some background just with what overlaps with world history and what I learned in middle school.</p>

<p>For USH, I must say my teacher is probably one of the top 10 best in the world. I'd never had a teacher like him before. He worked us like crazy, but everything he taught me stuck, as he had unique ways of teaching. His class was enjoyable, combined with the stress that it brought,which seemed to have resulted in a good combination. Also- my teacher made me, for the first time, love and enjoy history. His passing rate is incredibly. So yes, I give a large amount of credit for my 5 to my teacher.</p>

<p>Biology- my teacher was so sweet, but also very easy. She's a brilliant, young woman, but her exams were fully from the worksheets she gave us, and the essay questions she gave us ahead of time, so I got an easy 100 in her class. Judging from my 5, however, I guess the information did actually go in my head (even though, I did tend to just memorize answer choices from the worksheets), and my growing interest in bio must have had some affect.</p>

<p>I didn't have to learn much on my own. In history, we were required to do a lott of reading, and basically teach ourselves at home, before he clarified it all in class, but we finished the curriculum with ease, way before the exam. For bio, we also finished the curriculum. However, I struggled with cell respiration, photosynthesis, and the nervous system, so those I had to work hard to teach myself at home.</p>

<p>How hard did I study for the exams?- I didn't study much. We had 6:50 AM review sessions for two weeks for US History, and a lot of homework to go with it, so that was a lot of studying.. but on my own I just read a few chapters that I needed to refresh, and looked over these charts we made.
For biology, I read through cliffs the weekend before (USH was on Friday, Bio the following monday, so I only studied that weekend)</p>

<p>And for tips-</p>

<p>Definitely buy the Cliffs book for biology. It helps tremendously.
Do a lot of practice multiple choice for AP language-the essays are a sinch, particularly if you're a good writer, but the multiple choice is the hard part. I am confident that if my teacher had done ANY multiple choice with us, or if I had squeezed in lang studying with my other two, I could have pulled off a five.</p>

<p>As I said, you should definitely take these classes. They are, in my opinion at least, very interesting (and I am one who finds everything boring). And the US and Bio exams have huge curves (I thought I would get a 2 or 3 on bio)</p>

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<p>Another tip- buy Barron's EZ Keys ( 2 books) for APUSH</p>

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<p>Heard AP Scheduling is a fun class.</p>

<p>AP Biology was a difficult class, a lot of memorization...I am more of a logic guy.</p>

<p>Personally I believe it depends on the teacher and not the course. How much work do the teachers give, do they lecture, if yes how well.</p>

<p>That kind of stuff.</p>

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<p>If only I could ask the teachers before the school year started... I guess ill just ask peers who have taken the class already</p>

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<p>Thats what I do...and I love my 'hardest' year so far.</p>

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<p>I think you should find rigorous to be a good sign, generally; hopefully you won't have to depend too much on yourself to pass your exams with flying colors! But I understand not wanting to load yourself down; doing 4 AP classes (2 of which being U.S. History and Language) really killed me at times, haha. I think what you're taking on is challenging and ultimately rewarding. My teachers have always tended to stress incoming students out by telling them how difficult their classes are, but a lot of the time it was a tactic to weed out the kids who just wanted a nice transcript but not any real work. The beginning of the year might even be hellacious to further remove slackers from the bunch, but eventually only the tenacious students remain, kind of like Survivor haha. If you're willing to put in the effort- and you sound like you do!- then you should be fine with those APs. Good luck, not that you'll need it. :]</p>

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<p>Just a couple of tips of AP USH.</p>

<p>I took AP USH in my sophomore year from a teacher that had been teaching at my school since 1978. What she made us do:</p>

<ol>
<li>Read the textbook, do not skim for answers</li>
<li>She made worksheets, with questions about the reading, and some essay questions to outline. (We did a lot of essay practice, this helps on the AP, if you don't have time, outlining helps too. I'm sure that 75% of the essays we did in class were outlines.)</li>
<li>When you miss questions on test, know why you got it wrong, don't ignore it.</li>
<li>Practice test questions under real timing (as AP time gets closer)</li>
<li>Make little marks by the questions you guessed on to see if you should guess on the AP (assuming that you can write on your test)</li>
<li>Make your own review book, with some brief (but not too brief) notes about important events, people, periods, etc. And study from it during the weeks before the AP.</li>
</ol>

<p>I'm sure about an hour of homework every night is enough to get a 5.</p>

<p>The textbook I used was the American Pageant 13th edition, and we used the Kaplan AP USH book to prepare. The Kaplan book offers multiple choice and 1 or 2 essay questions after each section. PR doesn't do that. I don't know about Barrons.</p>

<p>I got a 5 on the AP USH test, I thought it was pretty easy.</p>

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<p>bio is soooooooo easy. all you have to do is memorize. best class in the world! omggg and since we had a double period of it, every friday we had snack day :) amazingggg</p>

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<p>Yeah what I've heard from the kids who took APUSH last year - they all said it was a nightmare</p>