I am taking the following AP classes next year; can you guys give me some tips as to how to succeed in each of the following AP classes and set myself up for success for the AP exams? I really am worried and would appreciate some responses. I have been doing well in my AP classes and exams freshman and sophomore year. I’d like to try/aim to get 5’s on all of these though just because I want to make sure I can get national AP scholar.
AP Calculus BC, AP Physics I, AP Chemistry, AP Capstone Seminar, AP US History, AP Spanish Language and Culture, AP Environmental Science (maybe self-study, so not sure if I will actually do or not).
You can definitely self-study for environmental science (I took this class with the textbook as my only resource and did fine) but it IS time consuming. It isn’t just memorization: you actually have to spend time reading and re-reading the material in order to clearly understand it. If you do that, it’s not really a difficult course, but you already have a few challenging STEM classes so maybe wait until senior year if you really want to take it.
I think AP Spanish must have a really generous curve, because I literally did nothing in this class all year and got a 5 on the exam. The only way you can mess up is if you don’t recognize the vocabulary, so I’d recommend downloading some language-learning apps over the summer to at least get a head start. Knowing some stuff about Hispanic culture will help for the test, but you can get that just by reading the news on a semi-regular basis.
I don’t know much about the other AP’s, though.
Out of the ones you plan to take, I’ve complete apush, Calc bc, apes, and physics 1.
Apush is normally a lot of reading and hw, but the content itself is fairly easy. The AP exam was so nice too (compared to euro at least).
Calc bc was difficult for me. I loved AB the year before (hopefully you took that last year), but bc was much faster paced. Bc covered all of ab in one semester. 2nd semester was the hardest because it was all new material but still fast paced… The exam has an extremely generous curve though (40% get 5s I think).
Apes is really easy- just memorize all the Vocab. If you read through any of the prep books (I like 5 steps, but I heard Barrons is more detailed), then you should be fine. You can look up YouTube vids if you need a concept explained in greater detail. The exam was easy.
Physics was difficult. I had no background in it (no regular or honors physics offered) and I didn’t have a knack for it either. I watched every single khan academy vid on the topics covered in physics 1 just to maintain an A. I’d like to blame it on my teacher because she would just sit all class and not teach us anything, but I’m not sure if that’s how physics always is and you’re supposed to figure out everything by yourself. I didn’t bother paying for the exam cause I knew I would’ve failed…
I’m pretty sure you only need 8 tests with 4s to get national scholar bc I have it. How many APs did you take last year? I don’t think you need to stress so much about getting 5s, and it’s not even a major award.
@agentaquastar @the_general Thank you so much for these tips!
The only two of these I’ve done are Calc and Seminar. Calc BC, like a previous poster mentioned, is one of the easiest AP classes to get a 5 on, like almost half of students get 5’s. Make sure you do a ton of practice problems/practice tests… I did at least 4 or 5 practice multiple choice sets plus a ton of free response questions and that definitely helped.
Seminar is kinda weird. A huge part of your grade is the written exam, which imo is basically impossible to study for and doesn’t really relate that well to what you learn in class (this obviously depends on the teacher and everything). The main advice I can give is don’t procrastinate on your papers and presentations as they count toward your AP score and are hard to do well on if you do them last minute.
I haven’t taken US history or chemistry but based on what I’ve heard they will likely be your toughest classes by far.
