<p>Freshmen Year: Honors Social Studies, Honors English, Honors CAD (my small magnet school focuses on mathematics, science, and engineering), Honors Geometry, Honors Analysis 1 (equivalent to Honors Algebra 2 & Trig), Honors Physics (again, the engineering aspect of my school), and Spanish 1 (I'll skip Spanish 2 next year to take Spanish 3A).</p>
<p>I wanna self study:</p>
<p>AP Human Geography
AP Psychology
AP Env Science (do I need any biology for this? I don't start studying biology until junior year...)</p>
<p>Now, being a first timer to self studying: can I have any advice?</p>
<p>Nay, env sci is mostly common sense. Although background in ecology will help, the course itself is very shallow. A few prep books will do the trick.
As for self-studying, I would recommend an actual textbook if you have the luxury. But then again, its not absolutely necessary as the APs you intend to self study are the joke APs.</p>
<p>Those APs you want to self-study are definately not of the theoretical variety that actually require much study (not that any APs necessarily require much) - make sure you just know, if only superficially (just skim a textbook or study guide or whatever), all the material listed on the syllabuses, and you should be fine.</p>
<p>Do I have to talk to my guidance counselor about this?</p>
<p>Also, I mean to take more advanced APs but I don’t know any I can take as a freshmen. I don’t have the mathematical or scientific knowledge to take any of the more advanced courses and I don’t have the time to take AP Economics (a course I really want to learn)/AP Comp Science A.</p>
<p>I think we sign up in March and I will start sometimes in February so in case my counselor will give me some sort of evaluation before she gives me permission to sign up.</p>
<p>Those are all easy APs, so they are good ones to start out self studying your freshman year. I self studied psych and comp gov my junior year and got 5s. I started studying Psych literally 2 nights before. I just read Barrons twice and then easily 5’d it. Don’t worry about it (altho I don’t recommend following my study strategy…start a month before at least). I wanted to study Human geo that year too but my school said I couldn’t take any more AP exams. Human geo is basically the same thing, just read Barrons twice and you’re good.</p>
<p>When reading the Barrons book, do you suggest that we take notes?
And is Barrons alone sufficient enough to guarantee a solid 5 or should I supplement it with PR?
Thanks</p>
<p>I am not a huge fan of self-studying. Taking a class will not only prepare you well, but you may appreciate the class a lot more and have a genuine interest in the subject. But if you must, I would definitely not take all of three along with your schedule. I would only take 1 or 2 for freshman year. Maybe you take AP HG and ES this year. And take AP Psych next year.</p>
<p>That is, if you don’t want to kill yourself trying to get a 5 on all three tests.</p>
<p>For AP Human geo and psych I’d just read it twice. First time highlight important stuff you see and second time read what you highlighted. Or if you’re going to study more than a month in advance read it twice and then read your highlights as a last review.</p>