Biology

What would you say is the difficulty level of this class?

“It’s a challenging class. I would say it’s one of the harder AP’s as all AP sciences are I think. So if I were ranking it one to ten I’d say it’s like an eight.” (Courtney Goode, teacher) 

”Out of one to ten, it’s a good eight or nine. When I came into AP Bio, I wasn’t really expecting the rigor we were expected to follow, and a lot of the assignments took up a lot of my time, and then the tests were especially challenging, since on the FRQ’s, you had to get everything down… you had to show a proper understanding of all the concepts and a fluent free response.” (Laura Diao, senior)

“It’s pretty difficult.” (Tina Stanley, senior)

What is the workload like?

“It’s not always like nightly stuff, but when we’re working on writing a lab report and stuff it can add up, but students tend to do it still the night before and get away with it so ideally your working a little bit every night—half an hour to an hour—but that ends up getting pushed into one day, and that can add up a lot. So it’s a lot, it’s a heavy workload.” (Courtney Goode, teacher)

“It’s a lot, you have to branch out your time and then you have to… divide your work so you don’t procrastinate until the end.” (Laura Diao, senior)

“Depending on how much you procrastinate, the workload is actually pretty light.” (Tina Stanley, senior)

What kind of student should take this class/Why would a student want to take this class?

“If they got an A in Bio 1A and Bio 1B and we recommend A’s in chemistry as well. That would be somebody I think would be successful in AP Bio. But they’re going to work for it.” (Courtney Goode, teacher)

What kind of careers could this class lead to?

“This could be for any veterinary medicine, you would have to do bio classes or anatomy/physiology in college, kinesiology, even marine bio this would be great—environmental science—a great precursor for all of those.” (Courtney Goode, teacher)

Any tips for students looking to take this class?

“Time management is really important, and reading the textbook — even though some people tell you not to — is also really important.” (Laura Diao, senior)

“Study for the tests a couple days before, and go on the slideshow to review the chapter.” (Tina Stanley, senior)

Is there anything you would have done differently now that you have taken this course?

“[I would have] spent more time on it and studied for the tests more than just the night before.” (Tina Stanley, senior)