<p>I wanted to self study for some APs this year, as my school only offers 1 AP junior year (APUSH), so I had some questions:</p>
<li><p>What APs do people usually self study or which ones are the easiest to self study for?</p></li>
<li><p>Is this too late to start studying? What kind of timetable do you recommend using?</p></li>
<li><p>Which textbooks/prep books did you find helpful?</p></li>
<li><p>How did you feel about the extra pressure during the school year? Was it manageable?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If anyone could answer these questions or give me any other tips, it would be greatly appriciated, Thanx!!</p>
<p>im taking an 'independent study' AP Statistics class, basically i self-study, but in a classroom by myself for an hour each day. if ur not dumb, and ur not lazy, and hope to compare to cc members, than im sure u can easily study and pass the AP test. I know a guy who took 21 AP tests and got 5s on all of them.. obviously had to self study on a lot of em. hope thats inspiration enough</p>
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<li>What APs do people usually self study or which ones are the easiest to self study for?</li>
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<p>Human Geography, psychology, statistics, World History, Environmental Science... you should generally have an interest in the subject</p>
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<li>Is this too late to start studying? What kind of timetable do you recommend using?</li>
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<p>** Certainly it is not to late to start self study... For the exams i listed above i would recommend studying with a prep book and a text maybe for about 3 weeks before the test...It varies, tests like stat may take longer as its not just plain memorization and world history requires you to learn a DBQ. My advice would be to go to a bookstore and look at course descriptions in the review books and see how long you think you will need. I got a 5 on Human Geography with about a week of self study. **</p>
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<li>Which textbooks/prep books did you find helpful?</li>
</ol>
<p>** It varies per exam, I would recommend using the search option at the top of the page and find old threads about this(there are plenty) **</p>
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<li>How did you feel about the extra pressure during the school year? Was it manageable?</li>
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<p>** It depends on your EC's, classes, etc. I would go through first semester and see how it works out. If you are not feeling challenged or have extra time I would definitely self study**</p>
<p>My advice would be to self study for as many as you can manage and afford. If you took 3 or 4 exams this year coming from your school it would look great.</p>
<p>Computer Science A. Easy exam, very little material tested.</p>
<p>Barron's books are generally good for all AP exams and looking at old official AP FRQs are also helpful. And if you can afford it, old released MC exams.</p>
<p>For AP Environmental Science: I posted this earlier today. I agree, from what I've heard, Barron's is horrendous.</p>
<p>"I'm taking AP Environmental Science next year, so I've been doing some research on the cram books available. REA is 560 pages and Barron's is 528 pages, and from what I've heard, they're both filled with useless information. There's no use reading a cram book that's longer than your textbook! The Awesomeguides one is shorter, but my friends who took the course and my teacher all said that it doesn't cover the stuff you need to know for the AP exam. </p>
<p>My teacher recommended a book called "The Smartypants' Guide to the AP Environmental Science Exam" by Michelle Mahanian. That's the one I bought, and just skimming through it, it looks really good. It covers all the topics on the AP Exam, and it's only about 120 pages long (including the practice test and explanations, index, etc.)- pretty good for a lazy bum like me Here's the website where I bought it: <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/154552%5B/url%5D">http://www.lulu.com/content/154552</a></p>
<p>As for when to start self-studying, like ryan said, it depends on the exam. I would think that self-studyign World, European or US History would take a considerable amount of time. Even if you only read the review books, some of the review books for those subjects are quite thick! Other tests like Econ could probably be done in a lot less time.</p>
<p>To the OP, are you taking any classes in school for which there's an AP equivlent (ie. Government? Econ? Physcology? etc) These would probably be the best to self-study for since you will already have a good foundation for the material with your class in school.</p>