theoneo

The problem is that Campbell's is used for AP classes, and contains WAY too much info (I used it for a couple of bio projects). It's fine if you're just reading it for the main ideas and workings of biology, but there are still details that you need to memorize that won't be made obvious in a textbook and some that won't even be found in Princeton Review.

You need to memorize all the phyla for Monera and Protista (ciliates, slime molds, and algae, I think), and the ENTIRE classification system for Plantae (up to and including monocots and dicots). For Animalia, you should know the order of evolution of all the phyla (so yes, you need to know all the phyla), as well as the classes for the vertebrates subphylum (FARBM).

The trick to the classification system is understanding that everything is listed in the order of evolution and therefore in the order of increasing complexity. That means that fish came before amphibians, which came before reptiles, and so reptiles are more complex than amphibians, which are more complex than fish. I remember using this concept to remember how many chambers are in each animals' heart. Fish have two, amphibians and reptiles have three, and birds (sometimes called aves) and mammals have four. They're in increasing order.

You should also know the entire classification of the human. All the way from Animalia to Sapiens.

gxing

theoneo, thank you for all the advice!

one thing, when you say memorize "the entire classification system for Plantae" what exactly do you mean? surely we don't have to know all the species?

also, i know you mentioned that we do not need to know 8.3 in barron's, but what about the rest of the chapter? it seems pretty useless...


ps: i look forward to your notes!

Faithful101

but i dont know where to start.. I only took honors bio.. So i figured id try to learn more information than needed so that i would be even more prepared for the sat II.. by reading or trying to read the AP bio, and i thought maybe i would get a tutor if needed..because i really want to get a 700+ on the sat II and dont know if i can buy just using kaplans, pr, or cliffs AP..

theoneo.. did you have a really good AP bio teacher, is that why you did so well? and are you going to be a senior next year?

il bandito

Hey, theoneo, I have another question. Should I study Morphogenesis for sat II bio?

Do I need to know it for AP Biology?

cjsathos

Hey theononeo,
thanks for ur studying advice
i think it will be useful
can u advise me what was wrong with my studing patterns or the books i studied?
so a month before the june test, i went over PR about 2 times
i did not take any notes but simply read it
honestly if the SAT was only from the PR i would have scored higher than 710.
i knew almost everything from THAT PR book
PR was the only book i studied...
so do u think my problem was not studying Kaplan or Barrons?

did ur biology class at high school help u get an 800 on the test?
or was it only the studies who did from the prep books?
i want to know cuz i havent learned much from my ap bio class

weird thing is i took ap bio exam at the same year and scored a 5
but i only scored 710 on my SAT bio
and i actually studied more for the SAT than the ap exam...
but for the ap test i actually studied half of the kaplan book and half of PR cuz i ran out of time...(PR takes less time to study cuz its concise)
so please tell me what i should do to prepare for the november SAT bio exam

also if u have any advice for the math 2c, can you please tell me?
i used same stradegy for math 2c
i only studied PR and scored only 730
i was aiming for 800
when i took practice tests from PR, college board, sparknotes i actually got 780+
but on the test day, i have no idea what happened...
so please help...

cjsathos

o yeah
theoneo,
does the edition of the book matter?
i currently have the 2004-2005 for kaplan
but i already found some mistakes (or is it?) for example pg.3
#3 on the diagnostic test.

rantao08

I'm going to try Barron's and PR...hopefully that works.

It has been a year since I took the honors Biology course though :/

gxing

cjsathos, for math IIc use barron's. it's comprehensive and its practice tests are difficult, but if you want 800, that's the way to go. if you consistently score 750 on barron's, 800 should be no problem.