Customer Reviews

Cracking the AP Chemistry Exam, 2004-2005 Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So, being this the first year I took AP courses, I went a little over zealous and purchased 3 AP Chem books. Furthermore, a friend lent me another, and I skimmed through a few more. Let me say right out I got a 4. I was a bit disappointed, but I know I should have started studying harder and more rigorously. Even so, I believe that this book (Princeton's) positively contributed to my score.

Princeton Review
If you purchase only one review book, this is definately the one to get. This was the only one I really read through. The content was worthwhile, not too long, and fairly easy to read. I did most of the questions at the end of the chapters, but only took a quick look at the MC and Free Response questions at back of the book. I was a bit pressed for time. I finished reading the book the day right before the AP test. Really bad, I know. However, I had been preparing for a few weeks by doing old AP tests and tons and tons of old FR questions. I did almost all of the FR's on collegeboard' website. This book is definately not enough to get a 5, or even a four on. You should definately get a hold of old tests and do them! Also, try to keep up with the text book during the year to make sure you at least have some idea of what's going on. With that said, I can add one more high point of this book... the REACTIONS SECTION. The best I've seen. Very thorough, and much better than the other books. There are a few more rules than those in the books though, so make sure you ask a teacher or do enough to recognize patterns.

Barrons
This is definately one of the worse ones out of the lot. (Second worse.) I had read AP Euro review books before(since the test was a few days before) and was in the process of reading Princeton's chem book. How is this relavent you ask? Well, I've heard that some review books are notorious for huge, massive errors. I had personally never experienced this before and didn't notice any in the ones I had already read. Then there was the Barron's book. I looked at a few pages, and knew this was not worth the time. Specifically, I looked at the reactions questions at the end of the book. Some of the answers were WRONG! Very discouraging and wasted my time. Don't even bother with this book.

REA
The absolute worst one out of all of them. A friend lent this to me since she had it laying around. Please note that this book was from a couple years back (though review books don't change too much). I read about 1/4 of the book. Waste of time. Hard to read, wierd diagrams, doesn't contain what's need for the test. Really makes me leary from buying more of their review books in the future.

Kaplan
One of the better ones. The periodicity section in particular stands out. It was well written. I did not read this as I had absolutely no time, but it looks like a good, reliable, review. Seems a lot thicker than Princeton's, but would probably be more thorough. The reactions section though is definately inferrior.
This would be a good backup/ supplement to Princeton's version. Now I wish I did not procrastinate and instead spent time reading Kaplan's review.

Petersons
I did not have personal experience, but a friend owned this review guide. I did however have a brief skim through it. Every thing looked correct, and I liked the format and tone. It reminded me of Kaplan's (around the same thickness too), and my friend expressed that this was quality. There weren't any reviews for this on Amazon, so unfortunately, I did not get this.


All in all, I think I scored a solid 4 and not a 5 just because of the tricky multiple choice (I should have spread my time more evenly, but I did finish). And some dues go to my crazy chem teacher. He expected us to learn the material from reading just the really, really long text books and doing questions in the back. Most people didn't, and he often said he knew most of us would not pass. He gave a few lectures and stuff but not too indepth. I never comprehended the labs we did, but luckily there weren't specific questions on them. Also he said that some sections, like organic chemistry, weren't on the test. Except they were, and it wasn't just one question. Maybe if I had spent time doing the Princeton Reviews 2 tests, and reading through it again I could have gotten a 5.

This book definitely saved my life. I was expecting barely a 3 on the exam; I got a 5, almost 95% due to buying this book. With barely a month left before the exam, with a teacher who had never taught the class before and an absolutely AWFUL, overcomplicated textbook, I bought this book and began looking through its sample questions and reading its review.

Not only did the review contain information that showed up directly on the exam, the sample questions were formatted in nearly exactly the same way.

My recommendation- DEFINITELY get this book, then study like mad. Do as many problems as you possibly can, and make sure to read over the explanations, since they REALLY help.

Good luck, and don't stress too much!

Let me start off by saying that i had a terrible terrible teacher. He was extremely incompetent and lazy. So for anyone with a really bad teacher then my amazing review is for you. The high point of this book is that it has tons of practice questions. The book is split up into different sections such as gas laws, thermodynamics, nuclear chemistry and so on. At the end of each section there are 15- 30 questions on the topic and 3-6 essay questions. The questions are a little easy, but the essays are often challenging and cause you to see a new aspect on the topic. Each section is only a few pages and provides the bare bones on the topic. If you dont have any foundation this book probably isnt a good place to start. It is excellent at refreshing memory if you once knew chemistry. I had almost 0 foundation so i used my text book with this review book. It is even good if you use this book at the beginning of the year as you read each chapter. The practice tests were good but much easier than the actual test so expect a slightly lower score on the real thing. If you master this book you can easily get a 3 and maybe a 4. However if you want a 5, like me, USE MORE SOPHISTICATED RESOURCES such as your text book or the Barrons. This book is not good enough to alone get you a 5 unless you are already smart enough to get a 5.

This book is the best study aid I've ever used before. I actually used the 02-03 edition, but the book has remained essentially unchanged for the past few years. I didn't have an AP Chem class, only Chem 3, which did only so much to prepare me for the test. Instead I read through this book 2-3 times (which actually didn't take that long after I read it the first time) and did a few practice free reponse tests. I devoted all my studying time to this test (and not to my English Lit or US History, both of which I got 4's on), and doing this got me a solid 5 on the AP Chem. There were maybe 2-3 questions on the entire test I didn't know. Overall, this book covers almost every aspect that the test can test you on, with the exception of something that has to do w/ absorbity (which is new to the test, and I chose not to do that free response problem), and some lab questions, which you must learn on your own in a real lab situation. If you are taking the AP Chem test, buy this book or rent it from your local library (like me). It will be well worth it!

I took AP Chemistry last year and yesterday I just got my scores. I got a 5 in chemistry! I was shocked because I had a horrible chemistry teacher who told us nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, and labs wouldn't be on the test which is why he didn't cover it! This book (the 02-03 edition) helped me significantly because of all its practice questions and nicely explained explainations. It makes chemistry seem so easy and if you memorize everything in that book (and know labs), you will ace the AP test. There were only 4 questions out of 75 on the AP test that I didn't know! Another excellent book was the CliffNotes book for those of you who are like me and had a chemistry teacher who did not do any of the labs. That book gives a lot of details on the labs so you will get all the lab questions right even if you've never done a lab. But one important thing to remember is you can not cram with APs. I started studying 3 months with this book before the test and I took a lot of real practice tests.

This book is an excellent preparation guide for the AP chemistry exam, it includes hundreds of practice AP questions similar to the national exam itself. It is a quick read if you are preparing late for the exam and has a very organized and user friendly format dividing the sections in to the main concepts covered by the AP exam and offerring excellent preparation questions in those areas. The difficulty level of the questions however is open to discussion as some questions in the book are slightly less difficult or complex as the questions asked on the actual national exam, however the majority are equivalent in difficulty to the exam. As for the free response section of the exam, this book provides excellent sample essay questions very similar to the exam in its intricacies and meticulous detailing of the questions forcing one to think deeply in to an answer. The book however does not provide answers that explain the answer to the question in great depth however with the information provided by the answer, one who is knowledged in chemistry can conclude what a proper AP exam answer would read. A main dividing factor between the free response section of exams in this book and of the real exam is that the real exam's "equilibrium problem" has many more parts to complete than that of the samples. The samples provide only 4 or 5 parts to the mathematical problems, whereas on the exam you can expect to find problems with 7 to 8 parts, and some of the types of questions encountered in the 4 extra parts are never discussed in this book. The exam takes the mathematical questions to a higher level than this book and requires one to analyze further the situation of a problem and provide further calculations to demonstrate understanding, this princeton review book does not discuss this. However, all together this book has great value and i highly reccomend it for any brave enough to challenge the AP chemistry exam, it is an essential material for its practice questions and was a cornerstone for me to score my 5 on the AP chemistry national exam. My advice to those aspiring AP chemistry exammers is to buy as many books with practice exams as you can and take as many full length exams as possible, they are the most helpful tool that you can find, and the princeton review offers this exceptionally.

I purchased this book to help me prepare for the AP Chemistry exam and my class final, but when I started to read it, I put it aside and never opened it again because it was too simplistic. You're already going to know the stuff that they're telling you; the stuff that you need to know is the information that they leave out. You're much better off just sticking to your class notes. That's how I got a five.

Cracking the AP is the best Chemistry supplement and test-prep book on the market. It provides invaluable advice for taking the AP and covers each topic adequately. It's not a text book, don't expect to learn new material from it, but it's a fantastic review book.
Cracking the AP leads you through all the main topics refreshing your memory and providing accurately difficult problems at the end of each section.
About a week before the test, go through the entire book and do every problem. It will take a while, but it pays off, it did for me. You'll be able to see exactly what you need to study and you can just look it up in the book.

Overall, a superb study guide, don't settle for any other book.

very good end-of-chapter exercises, specific explanations among all the essay questions, and great practice tests!
besides, it's not too long~~
kinda of having fun reading if you took the course already since it's a great review for the AP Chemistry instead of a study guide.

This book was not bad.It assumes that you have mastered almost everything about Chemistry at the AP level because it does not cover the topics in specific detail. Most of the chapters are less than 10 pages =.= It succinctly gives you all the key information (i.e. the formulas, basics, etc) but fails to help a chemistry student in distress (in my opinion). For content, I used the Barrons AP Chemistry book. However, the tests in the Princeton book was realistic especially the MC although the free response might have been a bit easy. The real AP Chemistry test that I took was extremely similar. Predictablty, scoring 5s on both of the Princeton's practice tests, I got a 5 on the test. I recommend Princeton Review as a "cheat sheet" and as good, realistic practice. If you want a throrough review, however, i would strongly recommend Barrons.