<p>I'm planning to take three AP courses this year (I'm an incoming sophomore), and I don't know if they are "self-studiable."</p>
<ol>
<li>AP Biology</li>
<li>AP Psychology</li>
<li>AP World History</li>
</ol>
<p>Should I just study from the prep books? My sister told me that the AP textbooks have too much information. If so, which prep book should I use? Barron's or Princeton Review? Would it be best if I tried enrolling in a Biology class at my local community college? I heard the new AP Biology exam was difficult this year.</p>
<p>I can’t really speak for AP Bio or Psych, but I took AP World in school as a sophomore this year. The class is easy; it’s just a lot of memorization. You should be fine with a prep book, but make you sure you really know your dates and periods. Just keep doing practice questions until you feel like you know everything. If you aren’t doing as well as you hoped, get a textbook. My school used the Stearns AP World textbook which was really good.
I’ve heard AP Psych is the easiest AP to self study for. Just read through this Web Site and you can probably answer your own questions :)</p>
<p>AP Psychology is definitely self-studiable. The multiple choice can be tackled with common sense, really. If the question is “John read an article stating that a baby’s heartbeat begins 3 days after conception. As such, John believes abortion is murder. Later, the study is discredited. However, John still believes abortion is murder. John’s beliefs most clearly illustrate… A.) Confirmation Bias B.) Hindsight Bias C.) Functional Fixedness D.) Belief Perseverance” you can easily reason through it with some common sense. All the terms in psychology are pretty self-explanatory, just like the 4 above. There are some obscure ones so you’ll want a prep book, though (I heard Barron’s was good, but I didn’t use a prep book). But you should be able to handle the MC without a doubt. </p>
<p>The FRQ is a bit harder as it gives you a scenario and you have to apply terms to the scenario and you really have to think outside the box. But, even those that take the class often struggle with the FRQ and the vast majority still pass, ~20% get a 5 which is high compared to most AP classes. Only 1/3 of the raw score is from the FRQ which helps a lot, it’s much lower than other AP classes.</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend self-studying AP Psychology if you want to self-study. It’s one of the easier ones to self-study. </p>
<p>I’m not entirely sure on the other two, though. But I wouldn’t recommend self-studying Bio, or any science class really (with the exception of Physics C if you are taking Physics B and want an additional challenge). It’s really easy to self-study social studies classes because it’s just memorization, but science classes are centered on labs. It’s really hard to replicate lab experiences at home, and you don’t get nearly as much from a prep book as you would from a lab. So, I wouldn’t recommend it. But that’s just my opinion, and I have no experience with AP Bio and don’t have any friends that have taken it. So the advice of someone that’s taken the class might be better.</p>
<p>AP World I have no experience with, but I know a lot of students fail it. To me, that means it’s not a good candidate for self-studying because even those in the class can’t pass it - and it’s much harder to pass as a self-studier. But it’s not offered at my school so I might be drawing completely false conclusions! It might just be the fact that AP World is taken by younger students, not because it’s a hard exam or teachers are bad.</p>
<p>When self-studying and AP, how do you practice the essays? I understand that prep books have essay practice, but how do you know that you are writing in the correct format?</p>
<p>In my AP Language class, we did a lot of scoring practice activities. We did 5-6 prompts for each type of essay. The first and second prompt we would be given 5 sample essays and their score, with an explanation for the score. The third and fourth prompt we were given 5 sample essays, and told what the scores were (1, 3, 5, 7, 9 generally) and had to figure out which was which and write reasons why. The final prompts we did the same activity, but for a grade. Every point you were off was a point deducted from your essay score. Everyone did well though, very few students were off by more than 1 point. After you read that many sample essays you get the hang of it and know when an essay is 7-9 worthy, 5-6 worth, or 4 and below. So if you read samples, you should be able to judge your own effectively. You figure out the process and you can differentiate an excellent, adequate, and subpar essay. </p>
<p>If you think you’ll have trouble being impartial with your OWN essay, though, ask a teacher to look it over and grade it. A friend also taking the test works good too.</p>
<p>Hi,
thank you! Is this the textbook you are referring to? </p>
<p>[World</a> Civilizations, AP* Edition](<a href=“Site Retired”>Site Retired)</p>
<p>Hi FoodLover001,
I took AP Physics this year and I had that problem too, so I checked out the AP Website, which offered a lot of old tests, frq, and essays. Basically what I did was study the essays and how the person wrote it.</p>
<p>Here is an example of the Physics one that I looked at. “Samples and Commentary”</p>
<p>[AP</a> Central - The AP Physics B Exam](<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>The Difference Between AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2 – College Board Blog)</p>
<p>hope this helps :D</p>
<p>@andoverhopeful14: Thanks for the link!</p>
<p>I self studied for Psychology and it was easy. I felt that the exam was quite easy (got a 5). A lot of the material was interesting, so studying the Barrons book was essentially like reading a novel - it was very fun and engaging. (That might sound weird).</p>
<p>The AP Test Prep Forum has so much information about this it’s crazy.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I’d rank their selfstudiabilty like so:</p>
<ol>
<li>AP Psych [I took a practice test cold, like really cold, and got a 3]</li>
<li>AP World [A lot of memorization]</li>
<li>AP Bio [It’s like 3k pages of Campbell and Reece]</li>
</ol>