<p>Khan academy is an excellent resource, as always. Use it at your convenience, you don’t need to watch the videos in order (although if he starts with “In the last video …” I’d recommend you at least skim the previous one to get an idea of what it was about).</p>
<p>Learning your polyatomic ions and solubility rules right now is not a huge deal, because believe me when I say you’ll get well-acquainted with them throughout the year. You will use them so much that you won’t have to worry about not knowing them. If it gets close to exam time and you still haven’t learned them, THEN you’ll want to just sit down and memorize them.</p>
<p>Two other things you’ll want to learn are flame test colors and colors of ions in solution. Even if your class does tons of lab work, you probably won’t be using these two skills frequently enough to develop intuition. Just memorize those at some point during the year.</p>
<p>Molecular and electron geometries are often difficult to memorize, just because there’s a lot of names to learn, but they’re not heavily tested. Once you learn how to draw Lewis dot structures well, you’ll be able to easily predict how the atoms and electrons are arranged. The names of each configuration (tetrahedral, trigonal bipyramidal, octahedral, etc) will seem like a lot, but take some time to memorize them (you’ll understand what all this means during the year); it’s not difficult and it’s just free points if a question about it shows up.</p>
<p>Make sure you understand the concepts, because the FRQs on the AP exam like to throw a problem at you that requires you to blend together six different concepts. For this reason, you can always get partial credit on the free response if you get at least -some- of it correct.</p>
<p>You’ll find no shortage of cram sheets that just pack information densely. Use these just before exam time to make sure that you remember facts like flame tests, solubility, etc. However, I found them rather useless during the year, as they don’t help much with learning concepts.</p>
<p>There is always a problem on equilibrium on the free response, which can be a difficult topic for some. I’m sure you’ll learn this in the year, but if you don’t understand it, do everything you can to make yourself clear; that topic is extremely important. Same with acids/bases, that often goes hand in hand with equilibrium and is just as important. </p>
<p>Don’t stress out about electrochemistry. You may not cover it until the end of the year close to exam time, as it doesn’t really fit in with anything else besides redox reactions. There are one or two questions tops on the multiple choice, but you may find that they put an entire question about it on the free response (like they did this year). You can often reason your way through it if you know the basics.</p>
<p>Start practicing early. Like Krissyy, I got PR to review and found it very helpful. Use PR as a supplement to your class, and do the practice problems in each unit in addition to the practice tests at the end (but I would save the full tests for April or May). Stay clear on your concepts - if you get confused, look online, ask your friends, and (most importantly) see your teacher for help. Don’t be afraid to ask the teacher questions, either in or outside of class, because the teacher’s job is to help you learn the material. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help - no one can explain something better than a person.</p>
<p>Just stay on top of your work, study when you need to, and you’ll be fine. Good luck!</p>