<p>Hey guys. I am thinking of taking AP Bio next year, but I am apprehensive. Last year's valedictorian advised me not to take it. She said that she usually had to study for that class more than any other class and it brought her grades down in other classes sometimes. I know that its difficulty varies from school to school, but generally, how hard is it? Is the memorization excruciatingly difficult? I will also have 2 other AP classes at school and 3 others online. Will it be too much? I will admit, I'm not a huge science fan, and I worry that since I don't have a love for it, it will be tough for me to grasp the concepts. I also keep hearing horror stories about the biochemistry part here on CC. Math is not my thing. Is there a lot of math in the beginning? Thanks for all your help. I really am indecisive about this! :(</p>
<p>There is practically no math in AP Bio at all, except for a bit of probability in genetics. The class is also wicked hard in my school and had a reputation for bringing GPAs down, but I took it anyways and did well. It was a lot of work for me since I really don't care about biology and biochem, but I forced myself to make it interesting, and got through it. My advice is to talk to a few more people who took the class. Good luck :)</p>
<p>Okay, thanks. What were your final grades in the class? Like you, biology doesn't really "interest" me. I really want to get an A in the class of course. :D</p>
<p>so hard you'll end up peeing in ur pants everyday during class, without realizing it .. seriously, or you'll cry buckets of tears at home when you can't do the work .. u need the good luck man</p>
<p>Wow... Okay, hopefully it's not that bad! :D A few people did get A's last year. lol</p>
<p>I'm scared of that class...I'm taking it this year, and I, too, am nervous about it, definitely more so than my other three AP classes.</p>
<p>Yeah. In my school, AP Bio and AP Chem are the two hardest classes, and people frequently rip on the reputations of the two teachers as insensitive and horrific.</p>
<p>hm. the teacher at my school is pretty amazing. my school in general is pretty bad. our class was the first she taught, and of two classes totalling around 25 kids, 9 got 5s, around the same got 4s, and the rest got 3s. the same thing apparently happened this past year, 9 5s again, but this time more 4s and the class was smaller. she's amazing and reaaaaaaally down to earth. it's amazing, I don't remember even doing that much work in that class.. aside from a chapter review and the occasional lab report. we never had projects or anything either. so anyway, it depends mostly on your teacher!</p>
<p>edit- one thing I didn't mention that probably attributed to the scores that our class got was the amazing "review" sessions we had starting two weeks before the ap. she bought like 5 pies of pizza every day after school, and we would all sit and do practice tests/go over stuff in cliffs. it was really fun too :D</p>
<p>In my school, the chemistry teacher is literally insane...I had chem. last year, and there's no way I'd take AP...He gave unjust tests on which were questions on topics we had never covered, he set a tie on fire, blew up a Peep, gave pop quizzes almost every day, had an obsession with moles, apparently dresses up as a mole on mole day (but that was a Saturday last year), enjoys burning just about anything, keeps a rubber chicken named Gertrude, and has a mole cannon...he's crazy...it would have been better if he wasn't so hardcore on grading his impossible tests...:(</p>
<p>It totally depends on your teacher. Mine was stupid, and didn't teach anything. The textbook (Campbell) was pretty good. I thought the class was really easy, and I got a 4 on the AP without studying AT ALL (plus, the teacher only covered 2/3 of the material)</p>
<p>My friend barely did the homework and readings, but she still pulled off highest scores on some tests and got a 5 on the test...</p>
<p>But again, that's just my friend. I'm going to take it this year with AP USH and AP Lang/Comp, so I'm kind of scared, but I've taken AP chem last year and got a 4, so it might not be that bad... who knows. BTW, I've heard my AP bio teacher is awesome, so I hope that helps:)</p>
<p>I took AP Bio without having one single level one science class Freshman-Junior years. I had to beg and plead to get into AP Bio senior year. Everyone in that class (well 99%) of them were smarter than me. I studied almost every night, there were thousands of notes and pages in the book to go through, it was HELL. Most of my test grades were like 60s-80s with more lower grades lol </p>
<p>But I got atleast a B each marking period and ended up with a B+ final grade.
HARDEST CLASS of my life but it definately made me work harder and I don't regret taking it.</p>
<p>And I got a 1 on the AP Test LOL</p>
<p>You people are scaring me. Of all the places, I have to hear that a class is extremely difficult on COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL?</p>
<p>oh yeah, one thing I didn't mention was that my entire class was sophomores.. our school does it weird.. if you're an ap kid, 9th grade is earth science, 10th is ap bio, 11th ap chem, and 12th is ap physics. none of us had any bio background, and we still managed to do really well cause of our great teacher. campbells + cliffs = gg ap bio.</p>
<p>I detest the Advanced Placement program, specifically because I see increasingly larger amounts of freshmen and sophomores burdening themselves with needlessly rigorous schedules. How does College Board justify its sadism?</p>
<p>AP Bio is one of the biggest classes that has mixed opinions from people to people. In my opinion, AP Bio was one of my easier AP classes during sophomore year, and I did end up scoring a 5 on the test, 800's on both SAT II's E/M. </p>
<p>I did have some friends who I considered to be abnormally smart individuals barely scrape a B+ (their first!) in that class, with 2/3 of them scoring a 2.</p>
<p>Maybe you are a genius, if your "smart" friends did much worse than you.</p>
<p>Not really. They were just more humanities oriented people, now that I think about it.</p>
<p>Besides, being "smart" doesn't really have much to do with how you do in a biology class, let alone an AP exam.</p>
<p>True that.
So were you just good at reading the material and taking notes?
Or are you just science-oriented and have an easy time understanding concepts?</p>
<p>Bio AP is one of the hardest subjects in my school. It is know as a GPA decreaser, but I'm taking it senior year anyways. The teacher is known for being really tough, but prepares you well for the AP. She makes part of the Bio AP test.</p>