AP Exams

[Timarvay]

Looking for some advice from the playground:

In the coming school year, I have classes for about half the day, and I'm stuck in study halls for the rest because of a flawed set of class times. Namely, most of the classes I wanted are in the same four periods.

I'm going to spend my time in study halls teaching myself for AP exams. I'm taking Chemistry as a given, and taking the class for Biology next year. Knowing this, what other AP exams would you say I should take?

[zeratul]

My advice would be only take AP courses for things you think you'd be good at. If you're more math/science oriented and not as much English/history oriented you might want to veer more towards the math and science ones. That said if you're great at all for feel free to take as many as you can, but if you have a lot the work load can pile up a ton. The tests aren't necessarily as bad as people make them out to be by the way. The only studying i did before my AP world exam was going to an hour and a half of a review session, and I passed it.

[Timarvay]

So far, I've been good at basically every class except trigonometry. Trig pretty much killed me.

[RTGoodman]

If you can write well, and if you can get the AP English reading list, that might be one you could do by yourself. I mean, it's basically reading and writing, and you should already know those. The US History one MIGHT be doable, but it'd be ridiculously hard if you didn't take the class. (The format's weird anyway, and sometimes you get stuck with crazy topics about the French & Indian War and other things no one cares about.)

As for the others, I'm not sure. Definitely don't take the Biology one without the class - I thought that was probably one of the hardest, and I still don't know how I got a 5 on it. Statistics is another one that'd be impossible without the class. (Hell, it was impossible WITH the class.) Same probably goes for Calculus, Latin, and a few others.

[Ditto]

I'd recommend doing English-Composition. I took that with the worst teacher I've ever had and got a 5. I think the reason people did so well coming out of his class is because they realized 'Crap, I'm not getting any help from him...' :smalltongue: It's a pretty general grammar/reading comp/writing curricula, similar to the prep you'd do for SATs.

I took prob/stat my senior year and heard the AP test was a joke. I had a 110 average in that class, so I probably should have taken it. The stat course I took in college was a collossal waste of time.

Definitely can't do a History exam without the class, half of hte prep is learning how to tackle DBQs (document based questions) as much as it is knowing the content.

[Deathslayer7]

chem is a hard exam to take without the class. Our senior year we had a joke professor, and none of us took the AP exam cause we knew we wouldn't pass anyway. Literally the guy taught us almost nothing.

I wouldn't recommend taking any AP exams without taking the actual class itself. It will be a lot harder if you do, cause you have to learn the material on your own, and you have to motivate yourself. Early fall that might not seem such a big deal, but if you don't keep up with it year round, you're going to be in trouble.

[Quincunx]

I coasted AP Psychology sans class (hey, I had to extract some value from American Political Behavior class time, and the textbooks were just lying around) and took Calculus BC despite the AB-oriented class since I had a better grasp on integration than derivation. So long as you've managed to snag one class, ever, that has taught how to pound out a quality essay within the time limits, you should be OK to fill in the liberal arts exam of choice with studying facts on your own. Here I disagree with Ditto, since the essay-writing course should have touched upon how to wring an essay out of never-before-seen source material.

@V: At my academically driven public school, AP classes were worth the taking. Regular honors courses covered much of the same material, but AP classes focused on how to capitalize on that material for exams and/or for further study whereas Honors just tried to cram the info in your head. The timed essays I alluded to? AP class training only.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I took AP Calculus AB, got a 5... and realized it was all a complete waste of time and effort that I could have instead spent doing something constructive like working out. Chemistry, on the other hand.. would have been useful but my teacher, well, barely explained anything. If you wanted help, she'd just tell you it's all on the internet and you just have to look for it. Heck, even for the lecture she said the thing and that because of that she didn't need to even go over it. Needless to say most people were screwed even for the regular, run of the mill provincial exam...

Basically don't take AP classes/exams for the sake of taking AP classes exams. If you actually intend to use it for college or you need the extra marks AP gives you, go for it. Otherwise, do something constructive. Like leave school and go to the YMCA to work out for a period or two. Or learn to DJ.

[CDR_Doom]

I took AP Calculus AB, got a 5... and realized it was all a complete waste of time and effort that I could have instead spent doing something constructive like working out. Chemistry, on the other hand.. would have been useful but my teacher, well, barely explained anything. If you wanted help, she'd just tell you it's all on the internet and you just have to look for it. Heck, even for the lecture she said the thing and that because of that she didn't need to even go over it. Needless to say most people were screwed even for the regular, run of the mill provincial exam...

Basically don't take AP classes/exams for the sake of taking AP classes exams. If you actually intend to use it for college or you need the extra marks AP gives you, go for it. Otherwise, do something constructive. Like leave school and go to the YMCA to work out for a period or two. Or learn to DJ.

Um... What? I don't understand how gaining college credits is a complete waste of time. No matter what class you take, you get COLLEGE CREDITS! Almost every class you can take as an AP can be used to go towards your AA, so unless you aren't going to college it's a huge benefit. To put it into perspective, at my public State University as a resident of the state, it costs me $140 per credit hour for classes. If I took a single 3 credit AP class and passed I just saved myself $420 dollars. If I didn't live in the state, it costs over $500 per credit hour. In reality, from AP classes I graduated high school as a college sophmore with 32 credit hours of college coursework. Just by doing some studying and taking some tests, I saved almost $4500 in tuition and a year of college work. I can't see how skipping school to work out is even remotely as beneficial, especially since you can do that when school isn't happening.

[darkjubs]

I taught myself the material for AP Computer Science A back when I was in high school. Looking back I probably could have done AB, but since I had taught myself I wasn't too sure of the material it covered. So anyways, it's definitely doable, just pick a subject you enjoy and make sure to study.

[Recaiden]

No, taking the class when you could study on your own rather than take it. And that depends on the college you want to go to as to whether they take it.

[Timarvay]

Doing anything else isn't really an option; I'm not allowed out of the study hall rooms.

Looking at the list, I'm thinking about Chemistry, Music Theory, Macroeconomics, and Psychology. I'm going to be a biochemistry major, so I don't know how much use most of those are, but they could probably count as the electives everyone seems to want.

The main point of this is to fill the day, and this coves AP classes that I won't have a chance to take unless I take them on my own. Most of the History and Language classes are offered, and I'll probably take them next year assuming scheduling works out.

Has anyone got any experience with those classes?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Um... What? I don't understand how gaining college credits is a complete waste of time. No matter what class you take, you get COLLEGE CREDITS! Almost every class you can take as an AP can be used to go towards your AA, so unless you aren't going to college it's a huge benefit. To put it into perspective, at my public State University as a resident of the state, it costs me $140 per credit hour for classes. If I took a single 3 credit AP class and passed I just saved myself $420 dollars. If I didn't live in the state, it costs over $500 per credit hour. In reality, from AP classes I graduated high school as a college sophmore with 32 credit hours of college coursework. Just by doing some studying and taking some tests, I saved almost $4500 in tuition and a year of college work. I can't see how skipping school to work out is even remotely as beneficial, especially since you can do that when school isn't happening.
I'm doing a double major (biochem + psych). Just doing the required courses for this + med school requirements means I pretty much have to take only the required courses and that in itself gives me enough credits for both. Math is something I don't need. As in, don't need at all. Also, after two double majors + med school my tuition bills will rack up to so much that a few hundred bucks aren't going to make a difference either way, especially since I sometimes blow that much in a week of clubbing.

Instead of wasting countless hours doing calculus and physics I could have done something useful in my time.

[RTGoodman]

Instead of wasting countless hours doing calculus and physics I could have done something useful in my time.

Yeah, but that's a very specific case. Most colleges and universities, as far as I know, have general education requirements ranging from moderate to rather hefty. My school, I believe, requires 6 semester hours of English Composition, 12 s.h. of Social Sciences, 8 s.h. of Natural Science (including at least one lab), 3 s.h. of Math, 10 s.h. of Humanities and Fine Arts, 2 s.h. of Health, and 1-2 s.h. of Exercise. Those combined are 36 semester hours, which is a full year of classes, with the max load of 18 s.h., that don't have ANYTHING to do with your major (since you're not allowed to count those classes for GenEd requirements).

If you do what I did and take a bunch of AP classes or community college classes during high school (NC has a co-op program that lets you do that), you can get most of that out of the way. I didn't have to take any English Comp (got 4 and 5 on the AP English exams), Natural Sciences (5 on the AP Bio exam), or Math (community college). Also, I got all my basic history classes out of the way (US History 1 and 2, and World History 1 and 2) through AP US History exam (a 4, I think), and Western Civ at the community college.

With all that, I was able to cut an ENTIRE YEAR out of my undergraduate career. That's quite a bit of saved money.

[Tharivol123]

Depending on how much history you know, that may be a good way to go as well. I don't know what colleges you are looking at, but almost all have general ed requirements now. AP history will do a good job filling one of those requirements. If you load up on AP that can be used to meet gen ed electives it is a good way to go, let's you focus on your major and potentially graduate earlier.