#ap prep

[richestudies-blog]

I was trying to study, but I had a really hard time focusing on that when I needed to make: this list.

And that's totally fine. This is still something productive.

[study-starlight]

[36/100 days of productivity] April 5, 2018 Here's some review notes I'm taking for AP Calculus.

[jeparletoutesleslangues]

AP Bio: The Chemistry of Life REVIEW

Matter: whatever takes up space

Element: smallest, simplest base form(s) that can be found in a substance

compound: substance of 2(+) elements

C, H, O, N: 96% of living matter, essential to life (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen)

trace elements: elements only needed in small quantities by an organism (eg. iron)

atoms= protons (+), electrons (-), neutrons (0, number varies depending on isotope & therefore changes the element’s mass number [=protons + neutrons] but atomic number [= proton number] remains the same)

chemical bonds: interactions of valence electrons of different atoms --> molecules

covalent bonds: when valence electrons are SHARED by 2 atoms

nonpolar covalent bonds: equal share of electrons bc equal electronegativity (eg. O=O)

polar covalent bonds: unequal share bc diff electronegativity (eg H-O-H)

ionic bonds: such unequal sharing of electrons that more e.n. atom steals electron creating ions (with pos or neg charges)

hydrogen bonds: weak bonds between atoms on SEPARATE molecules (hydrogen + oxygen, fluorine, or nitrogen usually)

van der waals interactions/London dispersion forces: VERY weak bonds WITHIN a molecule due to uneven distribution of electrons, contribute to 3D shape of molecules

chemical reactions: reactants are converted into products (energy is not created nor destroyed!), can be reversible

chemical equilibrium: forward and reverse reactions create no net change though the outcomes DO NOT need to be equal (i.e. it will always be 50% carbon made and 30% carbon used --> 20% carbon consistently stays)

water: polar, hydrogen bonding between molecules, polar covalent bonding

the 4 emergent properties of water

1) cohesion: linking of like molecules

-adhesion: clinging of unlike molecules

-transpiration: cohesion & adhesion of water up xylem in plants

2) moderation of temperature bc high specific heat capacity (amt. energy to raise substance 1 degree C)

3) Insulation of bodies of water by floating ice

-against normal order of things, very cold water (ice) is its least dense form

4) universal solvent

-solvent + hydrophilic substances --> solution

-hydrophobic substances = nonpolar, don’t dissolve (eg. oil)

pH scale (power of hydrogen), ten-fold scale

acids: [H+] > [OH-]

bases: [OH-] > [H+]

neutral: pure water [H+] = [OH-]

buffers: minimizers of pH change eg. carbonic acid (in blood plasma and the ocean)

major element of life: CHONPS

organic compounds: carbon and often hydrogen

Carbon properties: 4 valence electrons --> 4 covalent bonds, singe/double/triple bonds, large carbon chains possible, chains/rings/branches

isomers: same molecular formula, diff structural formula

functional groups: elements attached to carbon skeleton that cause certain properties

hydroxyl (-OH): alcohols, dissolve molecules like sugars

carboxyl (O=C-OH): in fatty acids and sugars (and amino acids), acidic bc tendency to ionize & source of H+

amino (-NH2): in amines like amino acids

phosphate (PO3): in ATP, DNA, and phospholipids

sulfhydryl (-SH): forms disulfide bridge in proteins

methyl (-CH3): affects the expression of genes (methylation)

polymers: chain molecules of repeated subunits (monomers)

eg. carbs and proteins

monomers --> polymers: dehydration reaction (lose one H2O per connection made)

polymers --> monomers: hydrolysis rxn (require one H2O per)

carbohydrates: simple and complex sugars, monomers= monosaccharides, polymers= polysaccharides

-functions: energy storage (starch and glycogen [in muscles & liver]) & structural support (cellulose in plants and chitin in exoskeletons)

lipids: NOT polymers, hydrophobic (eg. waxes, oils, fats, steroids)

-fats= 3 fatty acids + 1 glycerol

-fatty acids: hydrophobic (nonpolar) hydrocarbon chains of varying lengths

--saturated fatty acids: linked to heart disease, no double bonds, solid at room temp, eg butter and lard

--unsaturated fatty acids: double carbon bonds --> kinks, liquid at room temp, often produced by plants, eg. corn oil

-functions: energy storage (store 2x calories of carbs) & protection/insulation (in adipose cells)

-phospholipids: glycerol, hydrophilic backbone + 2 hydrophobic fatty acid tails. both are arranged in a bilayer with tails facing each other

-steroids: 4 ringed lipids (eg. cholesterol), maybe be a hormone like estrogen or testosterone

proteins: polymers of monomers called amino acids (carboxyl, amino, hydrogen groups + variable R group)

-peptide bonds: links of amino acids

-4 levels of protein structure: primary (amino acid sequence), secondary (1D or 2D shape, alpha helix or beta pleated sheet), tertiary (globular shape due to R groups --> hydrophobic, van der walls, hydrogen, disulfide forces), quaternary (combo of multiple polypeptide chains eg. hemoglobin which has 4 chains)

-shape is key to function. single point mutation of hemoglobin --> sickle cell disease

-chaperonins: protein molecules that assist in protein folding, provide isolating environment until folded

-denaturation: lost shape/function of protein due to disturbance like pH or heat outside optimal range

nucleic acids: polymers with monomer of nucleotides

nucleotides= nitrogenous base (A, T, C, G, U) + pentose (5 carbon sugar) + phosphate group (PO3)

eg. DNA (A, T, C, G; double stranded helix; A-T and C-G) and RNA (A, U, C, G; single stranded; no thymine; A-U and C-G)

-DNA is antiparallel, one strand runs 5′ to 3′ the other 3′ to 5′

[merakinotes]

i took ap calculus ab last year and i scored well considering my teacher taught me absolutely nothing so i’m here to share my tips and resources i used !! 

familiarize yourself with the exam. here’s college board’s official overview of the ap calculus ab exam. you need to know the format of the test and what to expect so you’re prepared on test day.

khanacademy is king. khanacademy has a full course on ap calculus ab. i’d recommend watching videos on the sections you find particularly confusing, which is what i did. 

youtube!!! i love youtube so much and used it extremely often during the school year. in particular, patrickJMT’s videos were very helpful but besides that, i just copied the title of whatever calculus lesson i was on and watched 30 minute long videos of someone going over the lesson or doing practice problems so i’d actually learn it. this came in handy for in-class tests and such because i learned 0% of the calculus i know in school lol. 

do all the problems you can. this is more geared towards doing well in your class rather than the ap test itself, but before a test or quiz, i would try to redo all the hardest practice problems in the textbook in order to review the information. 

find more practice problems online!! i love kutasoftware because they have such a wide range of calculus worksheets to practice with & sometimes my teacher even gave these out as homework problems. kutasoftware gives you problems and then the answers at the end, but it doesn’t show the work, so i’d use these sheets after getting a gist myself of the topic. 

check out my calculus tag. i didn’t really use any of the resources there but they might help you :)

memorize the steps!! i used to write out in words how to do things in order to break them down & simplify them. for example, if i was trying to learn how to derive something, i would write out line by line and number how exactly to do that (bringing the exponent to the front, subtracting one from the exponent, the chain rule, etc). this was so so helpful in getting me to understand how to get to the end result. 

pro tip: if you’re stumped on how to answer a free response question, write out your givens and your unknowns, and go from there. calculus questions are usually straightforward in what they want you to do, so writing everything out will help clear out your head. 

use slader!! slader has so many textbooks and step-by-step answers so fingers crossed you’ll be able to find yours so you can get help with problems you don’t get. i love slader so much, it’s a true blessing. 

study early for the exam ! my class finished all the needed material for the test a month before so we spent a month practicing and doing problems. that month is truly the reason why i passed.

get friends to help! when studying for the ap exam, i’d suggest getting a good friend group so you can work on the problems on your own, but still have someone there if you need help. for me, i really understood some topics well but there were others i was completely lacking on, and some of my friends were able to help me figure them out! two brains are better than one. 

my Most Vital resource !! my calculus teacher put a bunch of released free response packets online and i swear these questions were so similar to the ones on the exam!! there are 15 packets of free response questions with 6 questions each and if you google a couple of words in the question of the year you can find the answers worked out online as well!! also, there is a hUGE multiple choice packet with the questions from 1969-1998 !! all of these are college board resources so they’re Super Official and basically the only reason i passed. you can access the google drive folder here ! :-)

with the packets ^^, i think it’d be best if you did one or two packets a week during the month before your exam. i’d just suggest trying to really understand the topics and how to do them, and you’ll see improvement in your efforts. with the free response packets, i didn’t know a single thing and googled the answers for most of them, but that was what helped me learn the material by working backwards.

those are all the tips i have !! i hope your year in ap calculus ab goes splendidly well & you come out with that super high ap score! best of luck & if you’d like to see more of my masterposts, they’re all here ! or you can request another one from me here :]  happy studying ✧°•*

[lemniscate-study]

56/100 • studying with friends is a very rare occasion for me, so I'm super grateful for getting this afternoon to do some last-minute test prep with them! I'm always much more productive around others. 📘 Listening to: Moonbound by Anzo

[study-starlight]

Hey everyone! As you guys may know, I’m taking four AP classes this year and the AP exams are about a month away. This means that I’ve started studying and prepping for my exams and I thought I’d share with you guys what I am going to be doing to prepare for each of my classes.

AP Environmental Science

For this class, I’m going to be using the AP Environmental Science Princeton Review book. To use this, I will be reading through each chapter of information and highlighting important information/key vocab words. I will also be doing the chapter questions and practice tests.

I also plan on going through my class notes periodically to review past units that I’ve learned earlier in the year. My teacher does lectures and prints out copies of the powerpoint slides for us to take notes on so I’ll occasionally look through these and add any extra notes I want to.

My number one way to prepare for the AP exam is to take practice tests and do practice questions. I’ve done some released AP multiple choice questions in class and plan to do released FRQs and score myself/improve based on the CollegeBoard rubric.

AP Literature and Composition

For this class, I’m going to be using the AP Literature and Composition Barron’s Book. I will be using this by taking notes on any important information I read in it that I want to remember. I also plan on taking the practice tests/questions and deciding from there what I need to work on.

With that book, I would also like to occasionally review the literary terms vocabulary so that I can be comfortable applying some more advanced/less basic terms on the AP exam.

I have made a ring of flashcards, each with a novel that I’ve read throughout high school. On the back of each card, I’ve written a brief summary, symbols, and themes present within each novel. I plan on using these either as a reference or review for the third essay prompt. Eventually, I’d like to create mindmaps for at least four of these novels so that I am well prepared to discuss these novels on the AP exam.

At least once, I plan on doing all three essays during a timed session so that I can be prepared for the time constraints I’ll experience on the AP exam and know what I need to do better to improve.

I plan on doing multiple practice essays (or at least outlining them) and then looking at the essay scoring and student responses available for the essay prompts to see how I compare and what I can do to improve.

AP Calculus AB 

The first thing I’ve done to study for this exam is that I went through all of my class notes and took brief, general notes on important information, formulas, and rules/theorems I need to remember. This way, rather than going through all of my notes which have a lot of practice problems, I can instead just go through this set of notes.

I also am using the Princeton Review AP Calculus AB prep book for practice problems. Based on how my practice problems go, I will direct my studying towards certain topics that I need more practice in.

My main thing that I do to study for math classes is practice problems, so between old worksheets I have, my class textbook, my prep book, and online resources I will be doing tons of practice problems.

Specifically, I will be practicing past FRQs on CollegeBoard and then correcting my answers based on the rubrics. By doing this, when I take the actual exam, I’ll know what specifically I need to do for different types of questions to get the points.

Lastly, I am going to review the trig functions and their derivatives and the unit circle (ideally every day or every other day) because for the exam you do need to know these and somehow I’ve gone through practically the whole school year without memorizing all of them. 

AP Statistics

I’m still a little unsure about what I’m going to do to study for the AP Statistics exam, but this is generally my plan. 

I’m pretty confident in my abilities/knowledge in Statistics so I’m not going to be using a prep book for this class.

I will be reading through all my notes periodically and take notes on the side about very important, overarching ideas that will definitely be on the exam. 

To practice AP style questions, I have gone through all of my assignments from this year and pulled out all of the ones that include released AP questions. I plan on doing these as practice and for any questions I get wrong, I am going to go over the question and understand why the correct answer is correct. 

I’m not entirely sure what specifically I’ll be using, but I’m in the process of gathering online resources for this class to reference and practice with as I study and like every AP class, I plan on practicing and grading past released FRQ problems.

I think that’s everything! I thought a post like this might be helpful because I know I personally like to search tumblr for ways that other people have studied for the classes I take and use some of their recommendations. Hopefully you guys can get something out of this and I’d love if any of you had any more resources/tips that you’d like to share regarding these classes. Best of luck to everyone taking AP exams soon!

[study-starlight]

[43/100 days of productivity] April 12, 2018 Today I finished all of my Calculus notes so now I'll be starting to do practice problems.

[study-starlight]

[35/100 days of productivity] April 4, 2018 Today was spent mostly doing AP Environmental Science and AP Calculus exam prep.