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Feeling much better today! Barely any pain in the morning but I went to see World War Z and now I'm back to feeling pain again. Darn.

A few words on my experience about AP Chem

So I posted this on fb for the ppl in my class so some of the stuff might not apply to you, readers, who are not in me clase de quimica. (why am I speaking Spanish?)
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Before you move on, lemme tell you that I'm not responsible if you die from reading my notes out of boredom. In addtion, I know I'm a such a bad writer (that's why I got a B in English right now!) so just disregard any stupid mistakes. Without further ado, here goes...
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Okay, so it's 9:39 and I'm done with my hw (if you don't count the work loads of tomorrow's hw and stuff that I have to read/practice but that's not the point) and I'm pretty much braindead so I decide to write something that requires less thinking.

Several underclassmen have ask me how to prep for ap classes. Well, my answer to you: buy a freaking ap prep book...or books!

But which one to buy?

So this is the purpose of this notes. I'd like to do a little swift glance that some of the books I bought for ap classes. I only do Math and Science, baby so don't expect history and english and blah blah here.

Science

I'm taking Bio and Physics this year so let me start with chem since I'm already done with that.

Unfortunately I donated all my books to the local lib. so I don't have them with me to give you a detail review for each of them (get over it!).

Overal, I think there are about four popular books for ap chem. Kaplan, Cliffnotes, Barrons, and Princeton.

The Kaplan one is VERY and I mean GRAVELY easy. Seriously, I didn't learn anything new from that book. It basically teaches you basic stuff you learn in Chem 1. AND it does not have practice problems to do at the end of each chapter.

Cliffnotes...I'm not so sure about practiatice problems but I don't think it has any either (correct me if I'm wrong). In general, cliffnotes book is more indepth than Kaplan. The thing I like about it is that it usually has charts to compare certain things to one another. That, my friends, is totally helpful if you are a visual learner like I am. The one thing I don't like about cliffnotes is that it's too long and redundant. There is stuff in there that I think is common sense but they explain it in a whole paragraph. (what a waste of ink. And trees.)

Barrons...the first word that came to my mind is URGH! No indepht analysis of issues and there are stuff in there that I am sure is not on the AP exam. I swear I am not exagerating! T rue. It has practice problem, loads of them to be exactly but they are too straight forward. Most of them is like one step problem. The good thing about it is (I think) it gives you a lot of practice (tons) at each and every subchapter. But again they are too simple. BUT at the end of the chapter that's when the fun comes in. The MC is too easy while some of the word problems or free response are HELL. Like, I don't even know where to begin. Some of the free response are solved in ways that are mentioned no where in the book. They're hard but THEY ARE NOT, I REPEAT NOOOTTT, the ap exam format. So am sorry but buying the barrons is really a waste of money.

Princeton...yes! yes! yes! and Yes! If you buy it! You're 1/3 of your way to get a 4 or 5. No kidding. Especially if you have Mr. Dashbach...which I believe you do. You're covered. All you need to do is read. And by reading, my dear readers if you still have the guts to read up to this part without getting bored, I don't mean just "PV=nRT. Okay, got it. Move it," I mean "PV=nRT. What does it mean? What if I change this and not that? Is there exceptions? How do I know when to use this formular and not PV=NkT or the one with density in it?" Yeah, sound stupid to say but I guarantee there are times when you'll ask yourself those questions and you'd beter pray that is not when you're taking the test.

Seriously if you have the princeton review for Chem, you don't even need the textbook. Forget the textbook. Just read everything in the Princeton review and you're good. I SERIOUSLY MEAN READ EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THERE. SERIOUSLY PAY ATTENTION TO THE TEXT RIGHT AFTER THE BOXED FORMULARS. THEY'RE THE KEY TO CRACK THE MC SECTION IN MR. D'S TEST AS WELL AS THE AP EXAM.

In conclusion, the best book is Princeton (duh) worst book is Barrown (urg!) the other falls in between but most of them have the serious problem of having too easy practice problem or none at all!

There, I've said everything I want to say about chem.

I'll talk about Bio and Physics sometime soon. Then I'll move on to math (but don't expect this anytime before winter break.

Thank you still reading and not falling off your chair or cursing about wasting 20 min of your life reading my notes.

Goodbye now.

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