<p>What would be the best was to prepare (and learn) the material for AP Computer Science AB? Are there any cheap and good online classes that would cover the material? Or would it be a better option to self study?</p>
<p>This is for my senior year, and I will have 4 or 5 classes otherwise...so time is not an issue. I just want to learn the material and take the test so I can take more advanced classes freshman year of college. But I need to get a 5 on the AP.</p>
<p>Bumpz0rz??</p>
<p>I "self-studied" for the Comp Sci AB test - given my tendency to procrastinate, I ended up trying to learn the entire course in a few days. It was an extreme situation, but I think that my experience illustrates that self-study certainly is doable, even for someone (like me) without prior programming experience.</p>
<p>The basic, Comp Sci A material is almost ridiculously simple, and the data structures in Comp Sci AB are the real meat of the course. They're not hard to handle conceptually, but it does take some work to get a good feel for them. That said, the multiple choice questions on the test are very easy for the self-taught student - if you know how the language works, you can just follow the code in each question and find the answer.</p>
<p>The free-response is somewhat more difficult, but not too hard. I have one critical piece of advice - leave spaces between the lines of code that you write. This might sound random, but since I was apparently very stupid, I didn't leave any space, and ultimately had to erase dozens of times when I revised and found mistakes. As you can imagine, this takes up precious test time.</p>
<p>The Litvin book "Be prepared for the AP Computer Science Exam in Java" is easily the best; if you read it and master the content, you should be fine. Remember that I tried to do everything in a few days - if you work throughout the year, or at least for longer than I did, you'll have a much better time taking the test... and I think that I probably got a 5. For the mathematical, logical mind, this is a nice self-study opportunity.</p>
<p>Do you just sign up for an a.p. test not at your school? Also, it wont conflict with other a.p. test right? All schools give the same a.p. test at the same time?</p>
<p>Yes, it is at the same time everywhere.</p>
<p>Is the Litvin book all I need? Would it be enough for someone with no experiance and without a class (usually it basically as a teacher and textbook resource? would there be anything else I could want?)</p>
<p>Hey, i'm in a somewhat similar situation, only i have to self-teach to get into the AP course its self. The AP placement exam is on VB 6.0. Anybody know any good books/other ways to prepare for that language?</p>
<p>"Is the Litvin book all I need? Would it be enough for someone with no experiance and without a class"</p>
<p>I had neither experience nor a class, and I just used the Litvin book. At the moment, it's hard to say whether that was enough - maybe it's best to answer that question once I receive my AP scores. :)</p>
<p>Sorry..but bump?
Does anyone have any advice on possible classes or something?</p>
<p>i am going to take cs a next may (self study) i am probably going to take programming at community college. is ab= java, and a=c++?????????????</p>
<p>No. They're both Java, I believe. They recently switched from C++. AB is just a higher level of concepts covered. I may have reversed C++ and Java though, but I doubt it.</p>
<p>yea they're both in java now. I took comp sci A in c++ and comp sci ab in java the next year.</p>
<p>Hrm. Well, the main topics to Comp Sci AB is Java syntax and data structures. If you want to take classes at a community college, you should take Intro to Java and something similar to Data Structures and Algorithms. Most likely, Data Structs and Algorithms will be taught in C++ so you'll have to do some studying on your own to change over to Java syntax when manipulating data structs. Overall, the AP isn't too difficult to self study if you're have prior programming experience.</p>