I’m an admitted student thinking about attending next year. Since it’s AP test signup time, I’m thinking about how ap tests will potentially benefit me next year.
I’ll get credit for ap bio, english, us and world history, and government and politics, but I made a 3 (no credit) on chemistry last year.
Would you recommend that I take the chemistry test again to get a 4 or 5 in order to test out, or just take Chemistry freshman year?
Take Chem freshman year - why would you do better this year - are you currently in an AP chem class, if not you will be more rusty now and possibly do worse not better. Plus they limit the number of AP credits you get and you are close to that limit (Max -32 credits from exams). Also if you major in biochem you will want to have a strong chem background which would be best gotten from taking chem in college.
I think I could do better this year (I wasn’t prepared for the 2014 format change, and neither was my teacher, and I’ve kept practicing throughout this year).
But, your comment about a strong Chem background was helpful.
I guess my question could be boiled down to whether it would be worth my time to work on AP test prep for a couple months in order to get credit for Intro Chem (to help fit an extra science course in 4 years since my scholarship only covers normal course load 8 semesters) and I’m now learning towards no.
Thankyou, and - to anyone else seeing this post - please feel free to still put in your opinion.
Going into biochem, you’ll want to have a really strong background and preparation in chemistry. Many teachers and professors often recommend that students take intro classes at the university in their major even if they could use AP credit to get out of it, just to make sure you have all the necessary background. (That’s not universal, but it’s not uncommon.) Getting a 3 on AP Chem doesn’t imply that you won’t succeed in biochem, but if you take intro chem instead of trying to AP out of it, you’d probably have a more solid chem background going into other courses in your major. The danger is not being comfortable enough with the chem, which compounds itself in later classes and could steamroll your GPA and success early on.
I would say there’s no harm in taking the test. You can always choose to take the class as a freshman if you want to, but you can’t go back and take the test if that’s what you decide you wanted.
Gonna hijack this thread rather than start my own discussion…
Would it be a waste of my time (and money) to take the AP Gov test? I looked around and saw that it would only fulfill my social science level 1 requirement, but I already have a 5 in AP Psych, which is the same value as AP Gov in terms of credit. Will the AP Gov test benefit me at all?
If you haven’t hit the 32 credit cap, taking it could still be useful for the credits. It would go toward your total requirement of credits for graduation, plus having more credits means you get to register earlier,whech can be a bonus.