So as an upcoming senior, I can say that ap classes definitely make you want to build up your time management skills because if you don’t take full advantage of how you utilize your time, you’ll end up swamped with a ton of work to do i a small time constraint, which was basically me at some points during my sophomore and junior year.
sophomore yr~
ap world history - i used PR and crash course and both were pretty helpful but i think crash course is better because it summarizes everything more concisely b/c for the essays you need to have a clear, clean cut view on how to compare time periods and civilizations and aspects of events whereas PR has all this extra info that you really dont need plus you can do practice questions online(crash course doesnt have a practice test in the book but online). the class is pretty manageable as long as you stay up to date with your readings and note taking.
junior yr~
ap human geo - pretty easy class that you could self study for; i got barrons and studied for like two days and survived the exam, i took this class the first semester so the info was a bit hazy but i crammed enough to not fail. the class is a partial review of world geo from freshman year but theres alot of other concepts that are new. the material is simple and comprehensible.
ap psych - also a super easy class that someone could self study for, i took this second semester so the info was fresh in my brain; i used 5 steps to 5 which has alot of vocab that may be daunting but going over it several times will rlly help b/c for the majority of the exam if you know the terms you can figure out the answer; the class was rlly fun and i recommend it to everyone
ap physics 1 - ok-ish class for me, i took the mock exam and did horrible and used barrons to study and idek if i did well on the exam. the class has alot of labs to apply knowledge which is really good for active learning and the tests and quizzes are good as long as you study well enough. the exam was more conceptual and analytical rather than mathematical which was how the tests and quizzes were for the whole year in my class so the class did not help me that much in preparation.
ap us history - the american pageant textbook that is required reading for the class is so tedious and boring so i survived on outlined notes i found online tbh. most ppl i know didnt read the textbook but just researched the topics needed to learn and took notes from there and did fine. i used the kaplan book for 14-15 school year after reading all the amazon reviews for the all the new prep books that came out for the new style of the exam. IT HAS ALOT OF PRACTICE QUESTIONS. i didnt finish reading it but i skimmed through and did some practice questions. the exam went fine for me. as long as you stay on top of the reading or just studying the general topics for each unit, the class will be manageable.
ap english lang - probably by far the most relevant class i took this past school year because i improved my writing skills so much and i will be able to get legitimate college credit on this rather than just skipping my elective credits. i did good in the class probably because i had the good teacher that could actually teach and not the bad one who just gave countless writing assignments(my class got alot of writing assignments as well but the teacher taught us good techniques to improve our output). i used barrons and skimmed through it. it gave general tips and good practice questions but tbh you dont need to buy a prep book for this exam b/c you can easily get a summarization of good tips for each essay and the mc part online. there isnt a specific way on how to improve on the mc other than to do multiple practice tests and see how you are getting things wrong. if you are not a major AP nerd but you want to get some college credit I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS CLASS.
lastly…ap classes taught me that grades are long term goals rather than short term that build up over large amounts of effort from doing the classwork, studying well for the assessments, and applying the concepts in labs and projects. non-honors/regular/advanced(in Texas thats what they call them) tend to not have much rigor so the amount of effort to get the desired grade is less than in ap class so it may make a student less willing to challenge his or herself in academics. AP classes help students to think outside of the box whereas non-honors/non-AP classes only teach a basic curriculum.
if anyone wants to get something productive out of their education whilst in high school i suggest they either do at least one ap class or participate in educational or career-driven extracurricular activity.
btw this website is really helpful for notes, powerpoints, cram kits, and practice tests~ http://www.appracticeexams.com/
ok baii~~ :3 (woah i didnt realize i wrote soo much)