<p>Hi guys,
So my AP bio teacher has requested us to purchase Kaplans edition of the AP bio prep book. I am reluctant only because I've heard negative reviews of Kaplan in the past. However, I do need to buy it since she is requiring it.
Does anyone have any suggestions for prep books for the revised exam or does anyone have books they have already bought and liked?</p>
<p>Suggestions please ?</p>
<p>Well first of all, remember that you’re taking the actual class and not going exclusively by the book, so it might not be so bad. Secondly, I hear Cliffnotes is an excellent source. I’m not sure if the latest edition, which came out this past spring, is adapted to the revised test though. Good luck!</p>
<p>My school also required the Kaplan book last year. It ended up being full of errors, both typographical and factual. In addition, the labs (very important!) were not well explained, and the practice exams were not similar to the real exam. I ended up getting the new edition of CliffsNotes, which was pretty helpful. The questions in the practice exams were similar to those on the actual exam in that they focused on graphs and analyzing information, though they were not perfect. My friends also reported that Barron’s was pretty good, but I am not familiar with it.</p>
<p>The review books for the new 2013 exam only came out in February. I don’t know when the new ones would come out, but for bio specifically, they better improve a lot because they were not helpful. My son did two Kaplan practice exams, supposedly for the 2013 version, and felt they were not at all like the real exam once he did that.</p>
<p>And yeah, if it is required, you have to buy it. Suggest you go to a B&N and actually look at the books to get an idea. I do agree also that the labs are an issue - my son had 100% on the labs in class, but they were not returned so he could not study from them, and the review books had overviews without details on the labs.</p>
<p>Thank you for your advice, everyone!</p>
<p>Well remember that this is the first year of the new format, so none of the review books this year were very good. They should be better this year since there’s a better idea of what types lf questions to expect on the exam. </p>
<p>That said, I used The Princeton Review and it covered the Biology content very well - it’s just unortunate you didn’t really need Bio knowledge on the Bio AP Exam (ironic, huh?). I ended up with a 3 on the exam, but I feel like I have more knowledge of Biology than some people who got 5s purely because they were good at data interpretation (which is a LARGE portion of the new bio exam).</p>