logo
logo
Sign in

Why Should You Take AP Courses?

avatar
Masterclass Space
Why Should You Take AP Courses?

The craze for Advanced Placement (AP) courses has surged in recent times. The importance of AP automatically shot up especially during the Pandemic time when SAT became optional for many top universities. There are several benefits in taking the AP exams and we have outlined each of them below:

  • You can graduate 2-3 semesters before a normal duration thereby saving money on tuition fees and living expenses.
  • Your profile impresses the admission officer and thus increases your chances of getting admission to the University of your Choice.
  • AP courses on the transcript increase your chances to get a scholarship in the university.
  • You get more flexibility in college. You can add a second major or minor, take more electives, study abroad, and still graduate early.
  • AP courses develop college-level academic skills. It already prepares you for the challenging academic environment of college.
  • You get time to be involved in extracurricular activities.

However, there are 38 AP Subjects but students should take those 3-5 APs which are relevant for their college degree. Some of the toughest and most popular APs are AP Physics 1/C, AP Calculus AB/BC, AP Chemistry and AP Statistics. Getting a perfect score of 5 in AP is the dream of every student.  If students go as per the strategies mentioned below, their journey to perfection will become a smooth road. Masterclass Space brings you the most popular strategies needed to ace your AP’s.

AP Physics 1/ AP Physics C:

AP Physics is a college-level course. It requires an in-depth knowledge of the subject to ace it. AP Physics C is calculus-based while AP Physics 1 is the algebra-based course. Many students prefer to use the book written by Douglas C. Giancoli - Physics - Principles with Applications for AP Physics 1 and Princeton Review’s Cracking for the AP Physics C Exam. As far as the course curriculum is considered, these books are excellent.

In the previous academic year, all students of Masterclass Space who took up AP Physics got 5. The way physics is taught in schools encourages rote learning rather than an understanding of the concepts. We, at MCS, aim to provide an in-depth analysis of each topic encouraging curiosity and factualization. We  ask our students to study from Fundamentals of Physics textbook by David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker. One of the best books ever written for Physics, it explains all concepts in-depth and gives plenty of questions to practice. We use a mind-blowing website called Physics Stack Exchange to give the best explanations possible. We also use Problems given in General Physics by I.E. Irodov to solve high-level questions that are above AP.  This level of preparation leaves no concept untouched and you can be assured of a perfect score.

AP Chemistry:

Genuinely, nothing beats the official test papers because they have questions that students would actually be facing in the exam. However, they must be attempted only after the syllabus is complete, and we  can help you to finally gauge your preparation.

For practice, these books have excellent theory and practice questions:

AP Chemistry Prep by The Princeton Review

Barron’s AP Chemistry

5 Steps to A 5 by McGraw Hill

 

Some recommended reference Books are:

Atkins' Physical Chemistry: International Eleventh Edition by Peter Atkins, Julio de Paula Concise Inorganic Chemistry by J.D. Lee

AP Calculus AB/BC:

AP Calculus AB covers 3 Big Ideas – Limits, Differential Calculus and Integral Calculus. AP Calculus BC covers one additional Big Idea – Sequence and Series and also some more advanced topics within the other three Big Ideas.

Few tips

You should find a good graphing calculator and familiarize yourself well with its functions.

Always practice keeping a timer to improve your time management.

Practice showing steps, how you arrived at the answer. There is partial credit for the steps shown.

Memorize formulas as no formula sheet is given in the exam.

Books

Apart from the most common book used which is Cracking the AP Calculus AB & BC Exams by Princeton Review, we use and recommend our students these books:

For AP Calculus AB - Calculus: Single Variable by Hughes-Hallett, Gleason, McCallum

For AP Calculus BC - Calculus of a Single Variable by Larson, Hostetler, Edwards

AP Statistics:

We follow the book by Daren S. Starnes, Josh Tabor -The Practice of Statistics as a standard book. But there are many more resources which we recommend like Statistics and Probability website - stattrek.com. It has tutorials and fast-paced videos which our students use frequently. You should check out https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-statistics/ exam website for questions and guidelines on how to answer FRQs. Remembering formulas isn’t a big deal but you should know how to apply them to different questions. A formula sheet is given in the test. Make yourself well acquainted with statistical operations on the graphing calculator.

Apart from academic preparation, involving yourself in some creative activity like sports, arts or meditation can help you remain focused and energetic throughout your journey.

collect
0
avatar
Masterclass Space
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more