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<p>Self-studying can be good, but it can also very well be bad. The trouble is when you say about getting a 5 in such a short time is that the AP tests aren’t always that accurate. Yes, they are pretty good, but they fall short in many subjects in many respects. For example, the Calculus AP test, it’s all analytical number plugging (and some graphical things) but do you ever look at proofs in how to achieve all of these miraculous formulas? No, not at all. On rare occasions teachers will show proofs to them, but typically teachers breeze right over that because “it won’t be tested on the AP test”. This is where it falls short. Guess what they will be doing in college? Probably doing math through proofs. Guess what all the higher level math courses are? Proof-based mathematics. This is the problem with self-studying. You study solely to the test and miss out on a good amount of information that you would have gotten in maybe a high school class, but certainly a college class. If you EVER want to self-study, you have to study more than just what’s on the test (that is if you want to use it as credit for college). Now there probably are exceptions where the AP actually covers more, but I highly doubt these appear very often. For example, let’s say a person was in a Physics B class but wanted to take the Physics C tests. So they decide to self-study for Physics C. Well firstly it’s good that you have that background information from Physics B, but as you may know Physics C goes more into detail in the topics. So you decide to pick up… let’s say the Princeton Review Physics C book and study your brains out from it. Ok, there is a problem here, you studied solely to the AP test. When you go and skip those classes in college because you got a 5 on the test, there could very well have been things that you missed because the AP test wouldn’t touch them. But… there is also this Barrons Physics C book, but people don’t recommend it because it has “superfluous” information that is not needed for the test. So which book should you choose? The PR one that may give you what you need for the test but not a large enough scope or the Barrons one that gives you much more than you need but will give a good amount of information possibly not covered on the AP test (that may be very useful for college). I would go with the Barrons hands down. Also, people get textbooks that they study for the year for the test.</p>
<p>Basically, I am not trying to say to not self-study, but what I am saying is to not limit the scope of your study to simply what will be on the AP test (if you intend to opt out of the corresponding college class). People don’t need to spend as long on it because they are only doing what the AP test requires and also probably do not have the best understanding of the subject. So if you intend to self-study, get a book that has more than you need and go through everything. Spend the year on it, not the month beforehand. This is especially true if you are going to opt out of Calc 1 and 2, but intend to be a math/science/engineering/etc major.</p>