What's the best prep book for AP Chemistry?

<p>I'm not just gonna use the book for a quick review. Since my AP Chemistry teacher's tests are all AP-style questions, I think I need to study the prep book along with my textbook to tackle her tests.</p>

<p>Princeton Review. Very helpful explanations, practice questions for each chapter and 2 (I believe) full tests… helped me succeed in AP Chem.</p>

<p>Personally, I liked “5 steps to a 5” best for Chemistry review. It helped when my regular textbook confused me. People seem to like the crash course book, too. I’d explore those or experiment with a few for your best shot.</p>

<p>I’m gonna call out equilibrium- Princeton Review was below average. I had a fantastic chem teacher, went to Barns&Noble to study and browsed every review book. Barron’s is the easiest to understand while still getting out most major concepts. </p>

<p>But whatever, just buy all of them. Trust me, you won’t regret it, it’s $20. </p>

<p>Got a 5</p>

<p>First off, I self-studied the AP, so I suppose you can take this with a grain of salt, but here was my experience:</p>

<p>I had Barron’s from the beginning, and I must say, I absolutely hated it… I used it up until the week before the AP, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn anything. xD</p>

<p>I switched to Princeton Review, and it was okay. Decent explanations and what not, but not phenomenal…</p>

<p>Finally, it’s that Friday before the Monday AP, and I’m freaking out because I know I’m going to fail it… Barron’s didn’t help at all, and PR wasn’t doing much for me either… (Although maybe it’s good to just complement the class)</p>

<p>So like I said, it’s that Friday, and my 5 steps to a 5 book came in after waiting 48438 weeks. (Bought it off of eBay, lmao) Anyway, I crammed 5 steps to a 5, and I feel like I definitely learned a lot more compared to Barron’s and PR. </p>

<p>In the end, I only pulled a 3, but I’m pretty confident if that book had come in even a week before, I could’ve pulled a 5.</p>

<p>Like I said though, I self-studied, so take my experience with a grain of salt.</p>

<p>I got a 2003 Barron’s book from the library for self-study alongside the Zumdahl textbook (found online for free, score!), and it works well because I already know the material I’m going through. I don’t know if it’d work as well in Lesley’s case… it clearly didn’t.</p>

<p>princeton is absolute trash: spelling mistakes, rogue way of doing equilibrium problems that only works for easy chem 1 classes, and easy,off topic practice tests.</p>

<p>get the thickest book on chem you can find because its better to know extra info than so called “relevant info”</p>

<p>PR is good because it skims the general surface of the chem topics. Before every chapter test in class, just review the corresponding chapter in PR/ take the quiz at the end, AND go over you class notes, and you’ll do well on the test. </p>

<p>Personal experience: In the beginning of the year, I didn’t use my PR book at all because I thought it was intimidating and I thought I could just use my class notes to study. I got B’s on the first 2 tests before I finally cracked open my PR book. I got A’s on the rest of the tests in the semester and brought my grade up to a solid A.</p>

<p>Honestly, it’s a lot easier to get a 5 on the test than an A in the class. As long as you follow above stated method, you should be able to get a 5 with minimal studying.</p>

<p>GET PR!!!</p>

<p>thanks, guys. I bought Barron’s last week because of the amount of information and how it’s rumored to have really hard practice exam questions.</p>

<p>@Lesley - maybe it didn’t work out because it was the week before the AP exam. Barron’s is also rumored to have abundant - if not superfluous - information. But I guess I need the info and the hard questions to do well on the tests.</p>

<p>In 2014, the best prep book for AP Chemistry is the Barron’s AP Chemistry, 7th Edition by Neil D. Jespersen.
<a href=“http://amzn.to/1tWtpXS”>http://amzn.to/1tWtpXS&lt;/a&gt;
This book has plenty of good practice tests with the new exam style question. </p>