<p>oh and @ jonhs123, perhaps I can offer my explanation for #37, choice C (which I eliminated when doing this question)</p>
<p>Choice c states “Looking in sedimentary layers next to bodies of water in order
to find marine fossils of bivalves and trilobites.” Now, take a look at the table, at the end of the devonian period AND the cretacaceous period, bivalves get reduced/greatly extinct. Same for trilobites, they are present in more than one period. Choice C doesn’t specify that you would be looking in the correct sedimentary layer or even any particular sedimentary layer (similar to what you were thinking @writingonstars). </p>
<p>Therefore, from my perspective, the wording in choice c disguises the raw meaning of the answer choice which is: go blindly to the beach (lake, etc) and dig up some rock to try to find fossils (since choice c doesn’t specify a PARTICULAR rock layer)</p>
<p>I actually got #28 wrong the first time around (I chose plate III). We went over it in class but my bio teacher is horrible at explaining things. I thought about it and this is all I can reason behind it:
The question says “highest percentage of bacteria” that will produce insulin as in the number of bacteria that will produce over the overall number (like a proportion you know?) so for plate 1 and 2 you can obviously scratch those off. For three it is possible that some of the bacteria will have the insulin producing gene but some won’t either. For plate IV all the bacteria that can’t produce insulin would be killed off by the ampicillin. So technically 100% of the bacteria on plate IV would produce insulin while maybe some of all the bacteria in plate III would produce insulin (say there’s like 100 colonies or bacteria and only 10 have the insulin producing gene, then plate III would be 10%)</p>
<p>Again it’s the simplicity I guess. You don’t need to know anything about bacteria or such maybe background info on the plasmids, but the overall thing you need is to just look at the questions plainly almost as if it wasn’t a biology test I guess.</p>
<p>@Michellehby, that explanation helped, the wording on many of these questions is very tricky, and now I see how that one would be crossed out for being too vague. @WritingonStars#28 was another tricky worded questions. I had that questions on a test in class months ago and got it wrong. From then I never frogot that one. I just read it as “which tray has the most insulin producing bacteria” and just picked Plate III, but then that question was explained, and I read it again carefully and then understood why Plate IV is correct.</p>
<p>@jonhs I wonder if reading questions carefully and not over thinking it is just the key to the exam now…Well, I guess that’s a universal tip to any exam, but with this new format I feel like its the main goal.</p>
<p>@purpledino I took the actual exam with all the problems. I didn’t do too well (got a 1 overall but the grading is weird since from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 was a ten point difference with 5 having about 50+ points in its range). After the FRQ, I was six points off from a five so I think I’m alright.</p>
<p>Alright, I was able to download the practice test from that website before the link stopped working. To @hypebeast1 and anyone else who needs the released AP test, use the following link. Just download the pdf off my google drive. </p>
<p>I think reading the questions carefully and analytically, but not too much, is the key, that’s what the college board is going for with these new types of questions that are graphed base. I did the whole exam and got a 72.5% on the free response+grid in overall (I weighted everything as 1 point to calculate my percentage, and the free response was just writing, no point in doing that, as several of the FRQ were used as test questions throughout the year, timed with the appropriate amount of time, so I got practice writing them already, and there wasn’t many left I haven’t done. That’s the only resource.</p>
<p>Yep, the Barron’s tradition of the practice tests being harder than the real thing continues. My teacher gave us the official practice test, and I got a 74% on the multiple choice. On the Barron’s one, I got a 66%.</p>
<p>This is how it ended up getting scored (this was test #1).</p>
<p>MC: 42/63
Math: 4/6
Essays: I knew how to answer three of them and one of them somewhat OKish. I absolutely did not know the other four at all.</p>
<p>Based off what my teacher has said and what I’ve heard from friends who took the exam last year (“I skipped three of the essays because I didn’t know how to answer them and I still got a 4!”), I’m hoping this is predicting at least a four. </p>
<p>That being said, how do you prepare for essays? It seems like the practice ones I’ve done have always thrown something out of left field and completely blindsided me.</p>
<p>The essays are so open ended and there are so many possibilities, the best thing to do for those, is just to flip through the entire book, making sure you understand the key concepts, and then you can just start writing, filling in all the details you remember. You should remember enough details to fill in once you know where to start.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if there are good practice problems (in addition to the ones provided by CB in the practice exam) related to the math formula sheet questions?</p>
<p>Shmoop gives some examples of math questions. The MC are memorization based (old format) and the FR and poorly written, but it may help, instructions to get access are below. I hope this helps.
[Free</a> Shmoop Test Prep (Limited Time) - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>@Lasagna: I’m sure if you search “(section on formula sheet such as Chi-Square) practice problems” on google you’ll find some. Granted, they might be tougher, but overall good practice.</p>