Post-AP Review Book Thoughts

<p>Someone created one of these threads a few years ago and it seemed really helpful, but seeing how some of the exams have been restructured, it'd be interesting to see what all of you thought about the review books you used this year.</p>

<p>I'm taking AP US, Physics, Chem, and Lang next year, so suggestions for those subjects would be especially appreciated! I heard Peterson's was great for chemistry, but I can't seem to find it online.../:</p>

<p>My recommendations:</p>

<p>1) AP Statistics - Barron's. It was a complete and thorough review. The practice questions at the end of each section were pretty difficult overall, but definitely still go through them because they make you think above what the CB expects. I also followed this book for some units we did in class and it helped me a lot on chapter tests; we pretty much skimmed through all the material in school, so Barron's was really great at helping me understand WHY certain procedures worked.</p>

<p>2) AP World History - Princeton Review. Like others on CC have said before, PR is basically a given for world history. It's actually relatively fun to read, coming from a math person who has always despised history classes. There's still a lot of superfluous information, although there's much less of it compared to Barron's. It's also great at connecting themes and big ideas, which will help A LOT on the essays.</p>

<p>AP Gov - Crash Course. I also got 5 Steps and PR, but Crash Course was the best out of them all.
AP Macro - Crash Course once again. I didn’t know much about macro (I thought I was more of a micro guy… totally wrong) and i just crammed in one day with the CC. I’m fairly sure I aced the MC and (hopefully) the FRQ’s as well.
AP Human Geo - nothing helped. :c
APUSH - Crash Course AGAIN. Larry Krieger is amazing, so I would get CC and maybe his Essentials book for US History as well.
AP English Language - If you’re good at the SAT, then you’ll be fine for MC. This year there weren’t any questions on literary terms, so yeah. Just practice essays as often as possible.
AP Psychology - Barron’s. 100%. </p>

<p>@capitalamerica‌ - Since the US History course is getting redesigned, do you think crash course would still be good? It doesn’t seem like they’re changing the material much, only how the course is approached, but I’m not 100% sure about specifics.</p>

<p>@catchinginfinity In those terms, I’m not sure either. I think I remember hearing that the new APUSH test will be more writing-oriented. If the learning goals and curriculum remain the same and the multiple choice is still similar, then I do highly recommend CC. Otherwise, I would wait to see how the new curriculum is designed for next year’s course and determine if any vast changes render the book less useful.</p>

<p>AP Bio- Cliffs 4th is supposed to be good, yet I didn’t really read it all. The bio test was more about analyzing information rather than knowing straight facts.</p>

<p>APUSH- AMSCO was a really great resource to review everything (Basically a mini-textbook). Crash course was also great for the MC. </p>

<p>APHuG- Barrons was good; just skimmed the vocab. terms after each chapter.</p>

<p>AP English Language- Cliffs is supposedly good, but the test is easy if you are a good writer/SAT CR</p>

<p>AP Environmental Science- Princeton Review was awesome and a very quick, easy read.</p>

<p>Barron’s AP Psych - Self-studied with this book, and I’m expecting a 4-5. Would recommend it.</p>

<p>Barron’s AP CompSci - Self-studied with this book, and I expect a 4-5. I would recommend it, but it definitely helps to have some OOP experience.</p>

<p>Barron’s AP Calculus BC - Overkill. I’m taking the exam tomorrow, so we’ll see. So far, the FRQs are way harder than released exams. </p>

<p>Barron’s AP Biology - Bad book. I used Campbell’s for most of the year, but Barron’s was a total waste of my time. I had the newest version, but it did not prepare me for the FRQs at all. The real questions are nothing like those from Barron’s. Expecting a 4.</p>

<p>Barron’s AP Lit - Good for practice tests. Other than the rhetorical devices, the book really doesn’t have much information. Expecting a 4-5.</p>

<p>[null] AP Latin - I really wish there was a review book for AP Latin. Expecting a 2.</p>

<p>5 Steps to a 5 AP Microeconomics - Amazing book. Could have been based off the test. Almost 100% sure I got a 5.</p>