I know this is really early seeing as AP tests finish tomorrow, but I would like to get your opinions and book suggestions for the following AP classes. I will be a junior next year.
AP’s I am taking in school:
AP Calculus AB
AP Physics C
AP Economics
AP’s I might self study:
AP Environmental Science
AP Psychology
AP Human Geography
AP Physics 1 (seeing that I already took an intro course in freshman year and I am taking physics c)
Any book suggestions and general tips will be much appreciated.
I self studied AP geography this year with the Princeton Review review book and REA crash course. I annotated the PR book over spring break (about 200 pages of material) and in the two weeks before the exam just read through my annotations and looked at quizlet sets online to learn the key terms/vocab. I read through some of the frq prompts and sample essays on college board to see the formatting and then the night before the test I read the Crash Course book front to back (concise review). I just took the test this morning and felt very prepared and confident. The material was super interesting and the test was short, I’d definitely recommend self studying! My advice would be get the Crash Course book unless you are good with time management and can spread your studying out over the course of the year & to know all the main models + the pros/cons/relevance of each
I took AP psych, AP enviro, and AP human geo in a classroom so I really can’t offer you tips on self-studying but I can say that psych and human geo are some of the easier AP courses as well as being fairly interesting so I would suggest self-studying one of them(or both), as you’d likely get the most out of it and would have the best chance of getting high scores on.
AP physics seems like an unappealing subject to me but I’ve never taken it so I can’t offer any insight on that.
For psych all you really need is Barron’s (get the flashcards too!) and just make sure you understand all the neuroscience stuff and know the vocab. I took human also, and purchased Princeton Review and Ethel Wood’s guide. I took notes on everything in Princeton, and then reviewed the notes and Ethel Wood the week before the test.
Regarding books, from my research it seems that the best books are as follows:
AP Calculus AB: Be Prepared for the AP Calculus Exam or Princeton Review or Barron’s
AP Physics C: Princeton Review
AP Economics: Princeton Review
AP Psychology: Barron’s with Rea
AP Human Geography: Barron’s
AP Environmental Science: Smartypants with Princeton Review
