Barron's AP Computer Science A (Barron's: The Leader in Test Preparation) 5th Edition

by Roselyn Teukolsky M.S. (Author)

32 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0764197048

ISBN-10: 0764197045

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AP Computer Science A Flashcards: 425 Cards to Prepare for Test Day
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This best-selling review manual has been thoroughly updated to reflect the College Board's elimination of the Level AB course and the updated Level A syllabus. The new edition presents three full-length AP practice exams for the Level A course. The first exam is a diagnostic test and contains charts detailing the topics for each question. All three model tests have questions answered and explained. Test takers will also find an extensive subject review including new sections on static variables, the List interface, Integer.MAX_VALUE, and Integer.MIN_VALUE. A section on two-dimensional arrays is included for the Level A exam. The enclosed CD-ROM contains two additional full-length model AP exams for Level A. These tests are presented with answers, explanations, automatic scoring for the multiple-choice questions, and a scoring chart.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

(back cover)

New edition thoroughly updated to reflect the College Board's elimination of the Level AB course and its replacement with the current Level A syllabus

Three full-length AP practice exams, including a diagnostic test, with all questions answered and explained

An extensive subject review that includes new sections on static variables, the List interface, Integer.MAX_VALUE, and Integer.MIN_VALUE

An enclosed CD-ROM presenting two additional full-length practice exams with answers, explanations, automatic scoring for the multiple-choice questions, and a scoring chart

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Barron's Educational Series; 5th edition (February 1, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 504 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0764197045
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0764197048
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.84 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.75 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,703,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,443 in AP Test Guides
- #3,634 in Computer & Technology Certification Guides
- #14,232 in Test Prep & Study Guides

Customer Reviews:
32 ratings

Customer reviews

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4 star		25%
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Top reviews from the United States

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ALee

great detail and a lot of practice

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2013

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This book covers everything you need for the ap exam, even a little bit more to help with understanding computer science in general. Not only will this book ace your next class exam, it'll help you get a 5 on the ap exam as well.

There are 9 chapters and 3 practice exams that you can take. It goes through all of gridworld rather thoroughly but in my opinion it focuses the most on arrays. After every chapter there are 20-40 questions that are modeled after the ap test, so there are a lot of practice problems! The book explains many concepts thoroughly and clearly.

All in all, I believe barron's is great for compsci and it is one of the reasons why I got a 5 on the AP exam.

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arbitraryasian

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2011

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I purchased this book to self-study for the Exam, and I feel that it helped very much. The information was presented well and the 30-question quizzes at the end of each chapter worked well as progress-tracking tools. The multiple choice questions in the practice exams at the end of the book felt harder than the ones on the AP Test, but I really can't complain about that. However, the free responses were much easier than the ones on the AP Test; if you are looking to practice those, I would suggest simply attempting some of the old AP free responses on College Board.

If you have a good amount of programming experience with an object-oriented language (C++ for instance), this is a great book to use for self-study and it can be done comfortably in the span of about two weeks. Even if you already know Java, this book can help you get a sense of what the AP Test questions would be like and allows you to focus on the topics covered on the Exam. If you don't know how to program already or have very rudimentary knowledge of OOP, get this book far prior to taking the AP Test; as good a book it is, the subject matter would take a while for someone with no backing to learn.

Overall, a great purchase, and I would recommend it and any of Barron's other AP guides for AP study material. Shipping was very fast as well; it came in one day, though this was with Prime trial on.

11 people found this helpful

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helixcon

Not perfect, but the best AP Comp Sci review book I've seen

Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2010

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As an AP Computer Science teacher, I've looked through many of these review books. I use them to get question ideas for assessments, and I also recommend them to my students.

The Barron's book is the most up-to-date one that I've come across. It covers all of the changes to the AP Comp Sci A exam since the AB class was dropped, including the List interface, two-dimensional arrays, and static variables. In addition, it has an excellent section on the current case study, GridWorld.

It's not a perfect book by any stretch. Some of the questions are unrealistic as AP questions, and my students have told me in the past the actual AP exam has been easier than the questions in this book (though that's not necessarily a bad thing, of course). In addition, I'm not impressed with its selection of free response questions. There aren't very many, and the ones that it has are not of the highest quality.

With those caveats, I still highly recommend this book for anyone preparing for the AP Computer Science exam. It's the best review book I've come across, and the only I've seen that is up-to-date.

19 people found this helpful

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Easy to read, great practice

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2012

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I've taken a lot of AP tests, and of all the review books I've read, Barron's AP Computer Science A has been the most helpful. I put off studying until two nights before the test, so I ended up pulling an all-nighter and read the entire book. There's definitely a lot of information to know for the test, but Barron's puts everything in a concise, organized, easy-to-understand manner, so I had no problem retaining the information. In case you have more time, there's a diagnostic test that will help you pinpoint specific areas you need to brush up on, and there's four more practice tests (two of them on the CD-ROM). Additionally, each chapter contains roughly thirty multiple choice questions with explanations for the answers, which I found to be incredibly helpful. For me, the most challenging sections were recursion and the sort algorithms, so having about sixty questions on just those subjects really prepared me for the exam, which, by the way, I finished twenty minutes early thanks to this book!

2 people found this helpful

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Timmy

Better than my teacher!

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2012

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I love this book!

It is extremely clear and shows you the specific code needed to accomplish tasks. What it does that most don't is the logic. This book explains the theory behind each concept. This is extremely important because the AP test doesn't only ask questions about what you have already done, it asks you to apply the concepts to things you haven't specifically done.

It also came with a CD that contains an additional two tests.

The tests are noticeably tougher than actual AP tests, but it is probably to my advantage to practice with tougher material than I'll actually be given.

2 people found this helpful

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Niceperson

Educational

Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2018

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I find computer science courses to be interesting.

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Haylee

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2013

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Not only is this book up to date, unlike other books I have ordered from other sites, it was inexpensive and got to me just in time.
The only complaint is that it took longer than it should have to be sent, but it's great for anyone going through an APCS course.

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Misty May

Great supplement for any beginning Java course

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2013

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I bought this book for my son when he was taking AP Computer Science in high school. He used it to help him prepare for his course exams as well as the AP test.

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Top reviews from other countries

Daniel

A Very Good Review Book

Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2012

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This book was extremely helpful in writing my AP Compsci exam. Prior to the exam, I had not taken any AP CompSci courses, only a regular one. As a result, I had not covered everything that would be on the exam.

This book was very quick to explain topics so that I could know next to nothing about some topic one moment, and one or two pages later felt like an expert in the subject.

I also found it essential to have done practice multiple choice questions before the exam because I had to get used to answering them. Many MC questions provide a block of code that you must analyze and since I wasn't used to that kind of exercise, I was very slow at it at first. During the exam, I was still short on time in completing the multiple choice section, but I think I would've done much, much worse had I not look at the ones in the book before.

Also, the exam features a case study on something called GridWorld. It is important to be at least acquainted with this before the exam because there isn't enough time to learn about it during the exam.

Although I found that the exam doesn't accurately reflect whether a student is capable of programming, and is centered more around programming trivia and manually going through loops or recursions, the book definitely helped me in doing better on the exam.

I was very happy with my purchase and would recommend this book to anyone who is planning to write the AP CompSci exam.

Mehta

Superb book

Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2013

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My son is in grade 12 now and he bought this book last year. This book is really very useful from exam point of view. He did not find this book in library as it was borrowed by students. This book is always on demand. It is good to have one copy of the book permanently with you.

IT guy

Not bad a book

Reviewed in Canada on March 30, 2014

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Well written book and have adequate coverage of the subject matter.
Users will need to buy other books to supplement learning

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