im crashing out

hi! i am a rising senior and last year, I took 3 AP courses (passed all of them with an A+) and 5AP exams in total. To be honest, I never study for regular classes. As for AP courses and exams, there's tons of resources available. I'll list as many as i can remember:

1. Every AP has a Course and Exam Description PDF that gives you a understanding of what topics will be covered not only in each unit but literally every single sub unit. It clearly mentions all the Big ideas covered and major concepts. If you dont really wanna study you can just skim these to have an light understanding of each topic there possibly could be. These PDFs are actually designed for teachers but they are not hard to understand and you can find them by just typing the name of the AP followed by 'CED PDF'. I used these to see if I ever missed any topic before my exams.(it even gives a main focus of each topic, if you are able to answer the question asked under 'suggested skills' you more than ready for the finals.

2. Many students don't know this but you school library is a very great way to study for APs. If your school library does not have a book that you need, you can ask them to order it for you and if you attend a public school then you wont even have to pay anything.(princtons and barrons are the best books beacuse they come with around 5 practice tests that are in the book and there is a qr code that will lead you to more 7 practice tests).

3. If you cant buy a princton or barrons book, or your school isnt ordering the books(which they should) then just go to princton reviews website and you can get a free practice test PDF with answers or you can go to barrons website and register for an AP course for free and you will get 4 practice tests (2 of them will be timed)

4. If you want really organized 'classes' then use khan academy. you get free videos, articles, practice test, exams and quizzes.

5. After all these you can still find previous FRQs on the official college board website with answers.

6. If you have time then you def should watch the videos at AP classroom. Some classrooms will even have practice tests (eg AP calculus BC). And if you have a teacher( which you probably will because i am assuming you are taking the course) then they are supposed to upload assignments, quizzes and even more practice tests on AP classroom. If they are not uploading anything( many teachers don't, they just say "i have never used AP classroom because i think its useless") then you can request them to upload and tell them that they dont have to grade the work and just upload for the sake of studying. If they still dont go to your AP counselor.

7. There are specific teachers on youtube, they are not official college board teachers but they are treated as such by many teachers and students. you can search "youtube teacher for" and AP course and there name will pop up.

As for tips, what I personally did is to go with the teachers if you are taking the course and if you are not then look at the time you have left from the date you start studying to around first or second week of march ( yes march, not april, not may) and devide it equally for each sub unit( NOT EACH UNIT, some units are harder than others) include at least one test after every unit you cover and. VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT: do not wait till late april to start reviewing. no matter where you teacher stands with the portion, complete everything by mid march and send the rest of the march and 3 weeks of april for reviewing and perfecting yourself and see where you are weak. finally, a weak or 2 before the exam, start taking the practice tests(def take a couple in august before starting to study to see where you stand) .

i would really recommend you to focus on the unit that have the most weightage( yes the CED gives you that as well)

Remember if you are taking these classes for college applications then what you score on the AP exam in may has no value. The colleges are gonna look at how you did in the class not in the exam. If you are doing this to reduce the amount of money you spend on college or to take of some stress then 1. you unintentionally made your college application better. 2. this is where the score matters, you need check out the score accepted by the college you wanna attend and attempt for that score because each college has different scores that they accept.

AP chem is one of the hardest APs but i will assure you that no AP is too hard. If this is your first time taking APs then a very important thing you need to do is lower your expectations to your level, many people keep em high and when they feel like they are not doing enough, they try to cross the limit and fall all over. so that is something you need to be careful about.

i know this sound like a lot and hard to do but believe me once you start doing this daily for a couple weeks, you'll get the hang of it. And honestly, its pretty cool and awesome to study for APs its kinda fun.

hope this helps, and know that you cant compare yourself to others and adapt their daily routines. you need to know who you are and focus on parts you need to develop.

one more thing, check out others student's experience at your school and history of passing rates of APs online, this will help you set a proper timely goal. :)

have a good day!

if you have any questions feel free to ask. (students who had to struggle know how to solve a problem better than teachers and counselors)