Psych+Biology or Chemistry+APUSH?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
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<p>I'm a rising junior and I've signed up for AP Biology and AP Psych. However, according to many of the threads here, apparently AP Bio and Psych are all relatively easy and straightforward and can easily be self-studied. Because of that, I've decided to change my 2 APs to Chem and APUSH, considering both of them are hard to study for without a teacher, and self-study Bio and Psych. Alongside with my 2 APs I am also taking Honors Physics so I can take AP physics next year. Should I make this change?</p>

<p>As you can see, my schedule isn't at all rigorous nor impressive. I haven't had a single AP in my previous years. Considering I only have 2 APs, I really need to self study many of them. What do you guys think about this plan? I was also told that this year's AP Bio exam was much harder and had little memorization unlike previous tests. Is it still something I can self-study for and hope to get a 5? What are some other ones I should self-study this year?</p>

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<p>Sounds good. The new bio test is in fact easier. Yes, you have to actually understand the concepts, but I and many others found this new test far more doable. It should still be possible for you to self study & do well on it.</p>

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<p>@thelemonisinplay Thank you that’s excellent to hear! Would you recommend some other APs I should study for? Or do you think my current 4 are enough? I have the entire summer and the rest of the next school year so I’ve got plenty of time. I’ve heard Comparative Govt and Macro/Micro are pretty easy. Or I could add in AP World/Euro. I’m not quite sure.</p>

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<p>AP World and Euro both require lots of work because there’s so much history to memorize. But if you’re good at history, that shouldn’t be a problem for you. In fact, history is one of my least favorite subjects, but I really enjoyed world history. So it depends on you. (And anyway, if you work throughout the year, it’s definitely doable.)</p>

<p>What other APs are you thinking about? How about AP English? I can’t say about Lit, because I haven’t done it yet, but I just took Lang and it was fairly easy. It’s not really like you can study for it anyway, just practice.</p>

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<p>Don’t rely on self-studied APs. They show that a student has a solid background in a subject, but what colleges are looking to see is if a student can succeed in a rigorous course-oriented setting. And so they’re nice if you’re looking for some sort of credits, but otherwise they won’t have as much weight in the admissions of top colleges as you’d probably like. Again, it’s never a bad idea, but don’t think it will make up for a weak course-load. All I can recommend is to take the most challenging schedule available to you.</p>

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<p>@thelemonisinplay hey! Sorry I forgot about this thread. Yeah I will be working through the year. I’m actually not quite sure about the history APs. I figured they’re easy since it’s straight forward memorizing without much else. Is that the case at all or not really? </p>

<p>AP Lang is a good suggestion. My school offers it for Juniors but I screwed up my sophomore grade and wasn’t recommended for it. I’ll try to talk to my counselor when school starts to see if I can take it. How challenging is AP Lang? I’m pretty good at essays in general, seeing as my low grade in sophomore year was due to turning in hw late and other unrelated projects. How would I go about studying AP Lang on my own? Would reading a bunch of novels and prep books while taking a lot of practice tests be enough?</p>

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<p>Yeah, that’s the case for the free response, at least - you need to know some hard facts to use as evidence to support your arguments. For the MC, though, it’s really understanding the big ideas/themes of history - for world history, at least. APUSH has some fact-based MC questions, but for the most part those MC questions test you on cause-and-effect relationships.</p>

<p>AP Lang is really not hard at all - at least, it wasn’t for me because I’ve practiced this kind of stuff (reading comprehension) for years to get better at it. Let me tell you, when I took the SAT in 8th grade critical reading was my worst section. I hated it. I physically could not get through the passages and understand the material. (I made a 680 on that, if it matters at all). Last summer, I started taking PSAT/SAT prep classes and every few days, I took practice tests, all through the summer, up till January. I might have taken a total of 40-50 practice tests (this is PSAT and SAT combined). All this practice is really what helped me, because now critical reading/reading comprehension in general has become so much easier for me. It’s a breeze now, to be honest. (For reference: I took the SAT in January and made a 790 on critical reading. I missed one question.)</p>

<p>Why am I telling you all this? Well, basically, all you have to do is practice. AP Lang MC is pretty much exactly like the critical reading on the SAT. So, if you just keep practicing MC, you will get better. As for the free response, if you’re a decent enough essay writer, you’ll do fine. Honestly, this AP is really not too difficult to make a 5 on, if you’re willing to put in the time to practice and take a couple full-length tests before the real thing.</p>

<p>Also - the nice thing about AP Lang is that there really isn’t much ‘vocab identification’ - at least, not like the sentence completion types on the critical reading. There are always a few here and there that pick out a word and say ‘in context, what does this word mean?’ But as long as you know how to use context clues to figure out, those aren’t hard. I wouldn’t say you have to read a lot to prepare for this test. If you’ve been reading higher-level material, or even just reading in general, anyway, it’s not going to help much. I’d say the most important thing for you to do is PRACTICE.</p>

<p>Let me know whether you end up taking it, and if you do, how it goes!</p>

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<p>That’s exactly what I’m doing this summer. I will be attending a SAT prep course daily and taking numerous of SAT practice tests in addition to that. My reading score is an awful 650 right now and I’m working as hard as I can to improve that. I’m also struggling on my SAT Writing-Essay right now as I have a hard time coming up with examples right away, which is why I plan on reading a lotta books to help with that.</p>

<p>I did read that AP Lang’s MC section has a lot of hard analysis stuff which is different from the SAT’s reading section. It also requires a deep understanding of literary devices and everything. thelemonisinplay what have you done to prepare for that aspect of the test? </p>

<p>Also thelemonisinplay did you take the class? or did you self-study? Thanks a ton for your replies. I’m planning on taking Chem APUSH and Psych. Still deciding about Lang.</p>

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<p>Oh, the dreaded essay. I seriously hated the SAT essay so much early on because like you, I couldn’t think of examples off the top of my head, but eventually I was just like ‘screw this.’ My strategy for the essay is use two examples (i.e. 2 body paragraphs) - one personal example (always made-up, because none of my personal experiences ever fit any of the prompts; I usually talk about something that happened to ‘my best friend’ or ‘my sister’ when lol I don’t even have a sister) and one example from history/some obscure reference that I might possibly remember from school. One really good example is technology/globalization/our increasingly interconnected world. I’ve been able to use that one a lot. Of course, if you run out of reasons to support your point of view, you can always use success. All of the essay prompts connect back to success in some way. (Sometimes success comes in the form of money, so think about that too.)</p>

<p>Idk where you heard that, but the MC section is no harder than the SAT critical reading section - I’d actually wager that it’s easier. The SAT CR has really difficult, really obscure passages and you absolutely have to know what’s going on in the passage to answer most of the questions. The AP Lang passages - I guess, you could say - are just as hard, but it’s not that different from the SAT. Also, my AP Lang teacher is an AP reader, and he told us a lot of really useful things; one of those is that they’re slowly getting rid of the literary devices questions (because they’re not really testing you on your ability to read critically, they’re more just memorization) and they’ve gotten rid of case questions entirely (you know, the ones with Roman numerals). Basically, I didn’t do anything to “prepare for that aspect of the test” because it’s not that different and you don’t need to worry about identifying literary devices, etc.</p>

<p>I took the class last year as a junior, yes. No problem, I hope you’re finding them useful! If you have any more questions, let me know :)</p>