<p>I need help studying for APCS. Can you recommend any good websites, online resources, or books that I can learn from (prep for AP exam material specifically)?</p>
<p>Programming is hard for me, but I've been able to get by in my APCS class so far by putting in a lot of time.</p>
<p>Thanks for any feedback (:</p>
<p>What topic are you working on now?</p>
<p>Don’t focus on “prep” AP Computer Science books. Those are useless.</p>
<p>Just Google up Java Programming Tutorials.</p>
<p>AND DO NOT Remote Memorize. If your rote memorizing for your tests then its useless. But thats just my opinion. I would rather have a non-thinking(cognitive) understanding of something than just remember things like “The Function Arguments are …” ect…</p>
<p>“I would rather have a non-thinking<a href=“cognitive”>U</a> understanding of something” -> Jorghi!</p>
<p>Well, since I don’t know what your curriculum looks like, and what you guys are doing in/out of class, I’d suggest CodingBat (google it). Problems for you to solve, some with hints to help you get started, and they are good practice for almost all types of APCS problems. Things like boolean, strings, arrays, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice so far! </p>
<p>HeWhoPwnz - Thank you 
I will practice with CodingBat. Do you know any similar sites that offer this kind of practice? I don’t get a lot of programming practice in class (a lot of the learning is lecture, which is awful for learning how to program), so I’d really appreciate any other opportunities to practice programming.</p>
<p>Columbian - Of course I’d prefer understanding over memorization, but I find it hard to break apart a piece of code and analyze how it’d run and spot the errors, etc. so I resort to memorizing blocks of code. Do you have any personal advice for this kind of problem? Following through with the logic/chronology of pre-written code and identifying errors is the biggest challenge for me.</p>
<p>Then there’s the problem of developing the logical steps for my own code. I find it hard to write code because I don’t know how to go about it logically. But after someone describes how to do it (in words), I can translate it into code easily. I just struggle with coming up with the steps for a program, but I can write it very quickly after I understand the logical process behind it. Besides practice, what can I do (or what should I be aware of) to better understand the logical sequence/methodology of a program? </p>
<p>MIThopeful - We’re working on arrays, arrayLists, strings, sorting, and searches right now. Can you provide any particular pointers for tackling these things? Also, are you aware of any websites that offer basic explanations of these concepts? My teacher is not the greatest (he was a PE coach last year but we had budget cuts and this was what happened…) at explaining new material, and for me, everything in APCS is new. </p>
<p>Thanks for reading through this long post. I promise I’ll keep my posts short(er) now :)</p>
<p>My AP CS teacher was pretty useless (first year teaching at school, young teacher), and so we relied on the textbook heavily. But the textbook itself probably won’t get you too much help. It gets confusing at times.</p>
<p>My absolute biggest recommendation is any programming activity for BlueJ, or using CodingBat. That site was one of the more prominent sources of help throughout the year, as it helps you tackle easy and tough problems relating to much of what APCS is. And I doubt you would need to use another programming exercise website to get more help. CodingBat has dozens of problems per topic, so by the time you get through all of them, you’ll have mastered it. </p>
<p>The only other alternative is perhaps this: [AP</a> Computer Science: Java - Educator.com](<a href=“http://www.educator.com/computer-science/java/ghyam/]AP”>[Java] | AP Computer Science | Educator.com). It’s a collection of videos from a professor of computer science that goes through just about everything you’ll cover in APCS aside from Gridworld. If you can handle watching like an hour long video per topic, then it’ll be a good source of help and a good review for a test the next day. It’s always great to be visually learning.</p>
<p>Aside from these, it’s really up to the teacher or help from friends. So, when they fail for you, use CodingBat and the videos. You said that you had trouble with coding and thinking of the proper code to write. I feel that you should start from scratch. Watch the first videos on the basics of computer science and Java syntax, and then go practice what you can in CodingBat. Then, move on to the next section of videos, followed by practice on CodingBat. Do this, and I’m positive you’ll be on track for whatever your goal is.</p>
<p>Arrays, ArrayLists, strings, sorting, and searching?
Yeah… I take IB Comp Sci, but we do learn 4/5 things. No ArrayLists, bleh.</p>
<p>My tips… find slides. I know my IBCS has some useful slides on arrays, strings, searching, and sorting.</p>