Hello all, I am a sophomore who will be taking AP Chemistry this year. Does anyone who has taken the course have any tips on how to study for it, how to prepare for it, etc? I only learned I was taking it last week, so I hadn’t been preparing for it like I would have if id requested if originally. My teacher for chem last year (same teacher as AP teacher) put a lot of emphasis on naming polyatomic and such, so does anyone have any tips on how to memorize these well? Any topics you found difficult that needs extra studying? Anything I shouldn’t worry about as much?
Sorry for all of these questions I’m just extremely nervous, my teacher only has a 55% pass rate.
Buy the best AP Study Guide book you can locate at your locate bookstore or online and do not assume that your teacher alone will prepare you. My D1 had a very high A average in Chem 2 Honors and with the same teacher that eventually taught AP Chem. He urged her to take AP Chem, saying that it would be just as easy for her. It was not. AP Chem ended up being her only course in high school where she got a B… and eventually only a 3 on the AP test.
In retrospect, she wishes she would have taken AP Biology or AP Physics instead. But you can do it… just self-study.
Calculations in Chemistry - The chem teacher took most of the summer work packet from this book, and used other parts of it during the school year. If you have time before school starts, this would be a good prep book to get started with. If your math skills are strong, you can fly through the math parts and just do the chemistry.
As far as the chem teacher was concerned, all the test prep books had problems and none were perfect, but the class used the 5 Steps to a 5 series.
The teacher said the small book (500 Problems in AP Chemistry) was really “5 steps to a 4” - it has good problems and explanations, but not enough of the very hardest ones you will see on the actual test.
The big 5 Steps book (I think it was just called 5 Steps to a 5 in AP Chemistry) had harder problems, but less detailed explanations, and still included some material that has since been dropped from the AP test, so she had the class skip a bit in this one.