Customer Reviews

Barron's AP Chemistry

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not including the errors everyone else has mentioned, this book is needlessly difficult. The exercises it presents are much more complicated than the AP itself, furthermore many of the topics which the book tests you on are not actually on the AP. The morning of the AP I opened this book and found 3 random multiple choice questions on a page. I could not answer any of them. Upon taking the AP, I answered all of the questions but one confidently and received a 5. This book did nothing for me but scare me out of my mind and make me grab all sorts of weaponry to make war upon this test when I was fully prepared to take it. Waste of time and money. On the positive side it does cover all the material, but so does your textbook...

I really like Barron's review books because their philosophy is that they teach you the subject matter. Princeton Review books on the other hand are about "cracking the test" and does offer good tips, but if I were to get one book, it'd be Barron's because learning the subject is the surest way to getting a good score. Having said that, the book is LOADED with errors and for that I deduct 1 star... anything from just typing the wrong character ("=" instead of '-') to wrong answers, wrong set-ups, decimal places in wrong place, missing decimal places... you get the idea. It's as if the whole Chemical Equilibrium chapter was edited by someone who wanted to sabotage the student. I am not kidding. But the thing is, if you reasonably know the concepts, you'd catch the mistakes because the mistakes are in the examples and not in the concept explanations. Don't be scared away because of the typos, but just know they are there. In the final analysis, it is still a valuable book to me and I like it despite its faults.

Beware! The sample test questions and answers are riddled with errors. Within the first 7 questions of Diagnostic Test 1, 2 of the questions contain errors that make the "correct" answer incorrect. I suggest skipping this book. Get a good chemistry text (Chang's 10th edition) and study from that.

I ordered this book thinking it was going to be another typical Barron's review book. It wasn't - I have to say I paid little attention in this class because my teacher explained things well enough to remember for the test. When it came to preparing for the AP test, I forgot almost everything - I did the practice questions on College Board and failed.

I went through this book, maybe taking 75% of the information (there is WAY too much info, so just be a good judge of what you should know based on what you learned in class). I got a 5 - the actual test was very easy to me.

And I will be heading to Princeton next year :D. Good luck to all! Seriously recommend this book.

The book is very detailed and informative, but there are way too many errors. Since my concept knowledge is fairly strong, I was able to work through the book to a certain extent and benefit from the provided information. However, I would not recommend this book to any student who is not already very advanced in this subject because the wrong answers and typographical errors would be very confusing.

Wow. Barron's AP Chemistry prep book is in a league of it's own. Beginning this book, I scored a solid 2/3 on a full length AP practice test. I was in terrible shape for the AP. 3 weeks later, I scored a 5 on the exam. The book gives very in depth explanations of the concepts you need to know for the AP. Some may argue that's a bad thing for review, but when you are doing as poorly as I was, the lengthier explanation can help to drill ideas into your head. The book is filled with practice problems, and doing them as I read through the book really heled me to understand, not just be able to repeat back, the concept behind the problems in the MC and FRQs of the AP. The problems, especially in the practice exams, are definitely harder than those on the AP, but in my mind, the over-preparation helped me more than under-preparing would have. I did not give this 5 stars however, because the book has many typos in it. It can be jarring to look up the answer to your problem, see you have it wrong, only to read through the explanation and discover that there was a printing or mathematical error involved in the solution shown. Beware of this when you do the practice problems. However, I still highly recommend this book, because if I could get a 5 on the exam, than you can with the help of Barron's.

This is a good choice for any one taking AP Chem. The book is well written. The book was a little bent, but nothing bad probably from being shipped. All around it is helpful to me.

The book contains way too many errors. The "answer explanation" section is also not very helpful in explaining the logic how a correct answer is obtained.

Taking AP Chem in my Senior Year of High School. I took honors chem in 10th grade and needed a refresher. Well this book is that and more. It's so big, well compared to my barrons AP calc book. So much info and a bunch of tests with explanations for everything.If you're gonna take AP Chem, BUY THIS BOOK !!