<p>My school only offers the A part and I will be taking the class next year. But I want to take the AB exam, so I will have to self-study for the rest of the material we don’t cover in class. Is it hard to self-study B part?</p>
<p>The AB exam has been discontinued for next year. but A is way easier</p>
<p>^Btw (kind of off topic), why does collegeboard insist on testing only Java? They should test C++, Python, Perl, etc (which are more useful and simpler than Java, especially Python)</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong Alex, but I think they’re discontinuing it after the May 2009 Exam.</p>
<p>“Last week, the College Board’s Trustees made a decision that has direct relationship to the work we are asking you to help us do over the coming months. Given the steady decline of student and teacher participation in the Computer Science AB program, it will be discontinued following the May 2009 AP Exam administration."</p>
<p>[Computer</a> Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : College Board to discontinue the AP CS AB exam](<a href=“Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson | Microsoft Learn”>Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson | Microsoft Learn)</p>
<p>(btw, yes I know I got the link from a blog, but I remember reading the collegeboard sources too saying that it will be discontinued after the 2008-2009 school year).</p>
<p>To answer your question GPA, the AB exam includes data structures and is a completely different game. Whereas the A Exam will test you on computer science concepts (OOP, Java Subset features, sorting algorithms), the AB Exam will test you on all those concepts in relation to advance data structures.</p>
<p>Also, suddenly at least 3 of the free response questions become data structure related (I don’t know what A exam free response questions are like).</p>
<p>So, if you’re going to self study, you HAVE to know advance data structures and those data structures in context with the rest of java.</p>
<p>But it isn’t impossible. Good luck to you if you want to do it.</p>