<p>Is anyone familiar with self studying AP subject matter to take the test? My son is very interested in computer science. Due to scheduling requirements he will probably not be able to take AP computer science at our hs. Does anyone have experience with this?</p>
<p>Burlmom, my son did "self study" for AP American History, English Lang & Comp, and English Lit. He did as well as he did when he took AP courses at his school (4's and 5's). At his school you can only take 3 honors classes a year so he had to pick and chose. I bought study books at the book store and he used them. I don't know how much they helped, or even how often he looked at them. It can be done though. Good luck to your son!</p>
<p>A lot of people self-study for AP exams. The difficulty depends on the subject, but it's totally do-able.</p>
<p>Many homeschoolers self-study for AP exams quite successfully--without help from parents or other adults. (It's part of the whole taking ownership thing.) </p>
<p>The materials from Skylit are excellent for the current AP comp sci exams (now based on JAVA), according to homeschoolers who've used them. Maria Litwin, an award-winning longtime AP teacher at Phillips Andover (and longtime member of the AP grading team) is the author. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.skylit.com%5B/url%5D">www.skylit.com</a></p>
<p>Also, the USA Computer Olympiad provides excellent free self-study training materials for those who want to pursue the subject to an even higher level, well beyond AP in intellectual challenge.</p>
<p><a href="http://ace.delos.com/usacogate%5B/url%5D">http://ace.delos.com/usacogate</a></p>
<p>Our Ss self-studied for several AP exams, but not CS.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.eimacs.com/LM/LMPlain.asp?F=opening&S=5%5B/url%5D">http://www.eimacs.com/LM/LMPlain.asp?F=opening&S=5</a> (they have an online version of Litvin's book, and other online courses)</p>
<p><a href="http://www-epgy.stanford.edu/courses/cs/%5B/url%5D">http://www-epgy.stanford.edu/courses/cs/</a> - they don't have an AP course, but one might want to learn Java there and then to move on to USACOGATE training pages for algorithms. But I think that for the exam, Litvin's book is a must: not only it covers the scope of the subject, but also provides experience with their "case study".</p>
<p>Is there any website for self studying AP biology? Thanks</p>
<p>I don't know about self-studying biology, but the textbook my S's school used (same as the one used in introductory biology at the Harvard Extension School) is by Reece & Campbell. I believe that the Barron's review book is well recommended.</p>
<p>hellousdad:</p>
<p>I don't recall any, but Thinkwell comes pretty close: in addition to their interactive CDs (many colleges use them instead of textbooks), they have online exersises.<br>
<a href="http://www.thinkwell.com/marketing/viewTitle.cfm?disciplineID=2&productID=16%5B/url%5D">http://www.thinkwell.com/marketing/viewTitle.cfm?disciplineID=2&productID=16</a></p>
<p>There are also webpages of school courses one can follow:
<a href="http://www.users.nac.net/challoran/apbio.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.users.nac.net/challoran/apbio.htm</a></p>
<p>or online courses at colleges and universities (but their curriculum may be different)
<a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Escs/hs/subjects/sci.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.indiana.edu/~scs/hs/subjects/sci.html</a>
<a href="http://eeohawk.unl.edu/ishs/courses/course_catalog/index.php?ActionFile=search_page&Action=View+Course&course_uri=93%5B/url%5D">http://eeohawk.unl.edu/ishs/courses/course_catalog/index.php?ActionFile=search_page&Action=View+Course&course_uri=93</a>
etc</p>
<p>burlmom - My son took AP CS at our high school but it was a terrible course - the teacher didn't know the material, let alone teach it, so it was sort of self taught. He got a 5 on the test. I guess you would have to have the compiler for the language (Java?) on your home computer so he could do the programming excercises (I think that is the right terminology, I am not a CS person.)
My D did an independent study of AP Art History under the supervision of a teacher this year. They only met about every 3 weeks for an hour or so after school, it was pretty much self taught as she read the entire two volume text on her own and only had a few quizzes and assignements, and she got a 4.
So it is very possible to do this.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone. I will pass along the information to him.</p>
<p>hellousdad, I don't know about any specific websites for AP Bio, but some of the ones marmat103 posted look good. The intro bio curriculum at most any college is going to be very,very similar. For AP Bio, one of the most common texts is the one marite recommended: Campbell and Reese. As for an AP prep book, CliffsAP is absolutely the best review book out there. It contains a detailed review of the material, and after going through the Bio curriculum, reading it a few times is bound to get you a good score on the AP. Your S/D could take Bio at a local college or through an online course and then take the AP exam after studying/reviewing with Cliffs. If your S/D wants to take the AP exam, then make sure he/she gets some old AP Bio tests to practice with (from pretty much any AP Bio teacher)</p>