Hi, so I realize that a lot of people are taking several AP classes and since school is starting up around this time, I figured I’d share my experiences with each of the APs I took (APUSH, Chem, Chinese, and LAC (test only)). I will be providing my scores, along with recommended prep books (if applicable) and how I studied and did in the class for each subject. I will also put my courseload for each year so all of you can see what I worked with and speculate how my schedule went.
DISCLAIMER
Please note that while the AP curriculum for each test is the same nationwide, homework load, test difficulty, and other things will vary from teacher to teacher, school to school. I would recommend talking to others that have taken the course before at your school so you can see how well you can do in the class.
Freshman
Honors Chinese (had to take placement test)
Freshman Lit (required, no honors)
Biology (required, no honors)
Gym (required)
Orchestra (fine arts requirement)
Geometry (regular track math, no honors)
Business/Microeconomics (college prep elective requirement)
Sophomore
AP Chinese
Alg 2/Trig (no honors)
Sophomore Lit (required, no honors)
World History (required, no honors or AP)
Chem Honors (physical science requirement, no AP science for sophomores)
Dance (more PE requirement)
Marketing (more elective requirement)
Junior
APUSH
AP Chem
Honors Lit (English requirement, highest level, regular and other courses also available)
Honors Pre-Calc
International Business (more elective)
Teacher’s Assistant
Senior
AP Macro (IP)
AP Gov (PL)
Lab Aide
AP Calc BC (IP)
AP Lit (IP)
AP Physics 1 (IP)
AP Chinese: Score: 5 Grade: A/B
Pretty easy if you are a native speaker. However, you do need to touch up on culture and narrative writing before the test. I would recommend knowing 3 pieces of classical Chinese literature, one historical figure besides Confucius, and also all of the holidays and festivals. Know how to pace yourself for the short conversations and culture presentation. In the months leading up to the test, it is good to try to speak as much Chinese as possible. Also, know how to type in Chinese. Be able to recognize the character you are trying to match up with the pinyin, so you avoid silly mistakes.
Recommended Prep Books: 5 Steps to a 5, ChaoYue.
APUSH: Score: 5 Grade: B/A
You better love to write. If your hand isn’t cramping by the end of the AP test, you either have excellent pain endurance or you wrote too little. But in all seriousness, yes, please practice your DBQs and FRQs. Be mindful of the ONE PAGE limit for the Short Answer Q’s, just so it doesn’t catch you by surprise. Know how to use primary and secondary sources. If a person gives you a satirical cartoon, will you 1) be able to recognize satire and 2) know what position the author is taking on the situation and 3) know what the cartoon is talking about? Know how to read graphs, and if dates are given, try to think what happened around that time in a historical context. If quotes are given, will you be able to tell who the audience is? Just basic things like that.
Recommended Prep Book: Crash Course AP US History. This was my bible. It is the best prep book I’ve ever used.
AP Chem: Score: 5 (known FRQ score is 41/46) Grade: A/A
Daunting? Yes. Challenging? No. My advice is practice, practice, practice. I did FRQs for a full month before the test, albeit some of it was required. It’s good to have a chemistry background before you come into the class, but a lot of people do well without one. You should be reading some type of textbook (Zumdahl’s is good) or watching some type of podcast like material (Khan Academy stuff) and doing practice problems for each unit. Before the AP Exam, be sure to finish up electrochem (redox and cell potential and such) because that is typically the last unit, but may be covered on the AP test.
Recommended Prep Books: I heard 5 Steps to a 5 is good, and so is PR. But I’ve never used either of them.
AP Lang: Score: 4 merp Grade: Not Available
The test can vary from year to year, I can’t say much about it. As everyone knows, there are 42-55 MC questions, followed by 3 essays, curved based on the amount of MC questions. This year, I happened to get 55 MC questions, and 3 weird FRQs. The most I can say is study your rhetorical devices, know some minute stuff (like SAT CR stuff) and little random miscellaneous things about citations. For FRQ, I think all you need is practice.
Recommended Prep Books: I didn’t use any lol. I bought PR, but never touched it. If someone can recommend some in the comments, that would be nice.
Ok I hope this helped someone or eased someone’s fears. If you need more info or some more details on a certain thing, feel free to PM me!
Those APs are in progress, and I will come back here before college to update what I learned from those 5 exams. For now, the only AP Exam I have taken without the class is AP Lang. I only chose to share this because I realized that I took the three most common AP exams (per se) and I realized people found APUSH and AP Chem scary.