Just Me

CRACKING THE AP BIOLOGY EXAM 2010 EDITION - THE PRINCETON REVIEW

Finally! I've been dying to do this although for some reason life keeps getting in the way.

The first thing I'd like to say about this book is its thickness... or lack thereof, to be exactly. The AP Biology book might as well be the second lightest of all the Princeton Review books right after the AP Psy. Nonetheless, it is the LIGHTEST of all the AP Bio prep books that I've had my hands on. The one for Barron's is HUGE but no more informative.

This book presents the information in a logical order going form the big picture to the small details. Looking the index alone can prove that.

But the one thing I LOVE LOVE LOVE about this book is that it SHOWS you how to memorize stuff. I remember a chapter about human anatomy in which you have to memorize all the hormones and what they do... Other books (I've read 4 different ap prep book on the anatomy sections) just tell you what they do and expect you to memorize everything from scratch. I mean, at the time, sure. But remember, the ap exam is not just about the human hormones. They can't expect people to memorize stuff out of the blue, especially stuff you're likely to not use AT ALL in real life. That's when this book helps because it shows you mnemonics to memorize.

GATOR PIT is how you're supposed to memorize the hormones like AHD, LH, FSH... How, you'll have to read the book and know.

When I read this book, I feel like I'm actually LISTENTING to someone talking to me instead of reading the dry and coarse words. I feel like they understand student's pains of having to memorize the stuff and try to understand or at least memorize as much as they can.

And oh, let's not forget about the quizzes at the end of each chapter. For some reason, THAT is so rare in other books. I did a review wayyy back about chem and I have to say only 2/5 ap chem books I had have the quizzes. Is it too hard to think of 5 questions for each chapter? I think not.

On the other hand, I would say that although informative, the quizzes at the end of the chapter for AP BIO are not as great. Often times there are questions about info. that is not presented in the chapter which leads to confusion. In addition, even if you get the answers right, I'd suggest you go to the answer page and look at the explanation. More often than not, the explanation gives you more detail on that particular area. I think Princeton could have done better given the fact that this book is still very thin.

In the end, it is the fact that reading this book got me a 5 on the AP exam. I remember having TWO questions on the ap exam that are exactly like the info present in the book. Needless to say I was thrilled because all I had to do is write down the info I've already memorized well (I'm a bit of a visual learner myself).

I wanted to do a review about AP Physics but unfortunately I didn't use the princeton book for Physics; our teacher asked us to use another green cover book which was printed in 2005. It was a big mistake. A VERY BIG MISTAKE because I got a 4 on the ap exam but I feel like I haven't learned anything in that class.

If you have to get one thing about of this loooooong review this is it:

If you're a high school student and you're taking ap classes. I don't care what it is and who teaches you, please please please stick with the Princeton Reviews. I promise you won't be disappointed.

That is, if you actually try.