 
Hey. It's Mr. Andersen and it's 2013. If you're
taking AP Biology that's really important
because this year they redid the whole AP
Biology curriculum and that means if you're
taking the exam it's a new improved and very
different exam than any one that's been given
in the past. And so no student or teacher
can tell you exactly what the test is going
to look like because no one's taken it yet.
And so it's important that you learn how this
test is going to be different and so you can
prepare for it. Because hopefully you're watching
this video months ahead of the AP exam so
you can prepare for it. But even though you
might be watching it the night before the
exam cramming, you can still pick up some
tips that are going to help you on the test
tomorrow. And so what is an AP exam? Basically
it's an exam that shows how well you know
the material. And do you know it at the level
of a college introductory class? And so you're
going to take this test. It's over three hours
long. It's two parts to it. And then you're
going to get your scores in the summer. And
when you get your scores in the summer, it's
going to come in an envelope and all it's
going to have is a number inside it. It's
going to say that you got a five, a four,
a three, a two or a one. And if you got a
five, a four a three, then you passed it.
And if you got a two or a one then you didn't.
And almost a quarter of a million students
are going to take it on that same exact day
at that same exact time. And about half of
them are going to fail it. And so I want you
to get to the area that you're in of a five,
a four or a three. Why is that? Well basically
if you get a five on an AP exam, it means
that you could get an A in an introductory
biology class. And if you get a four it's
like getting an A-, B+ or B. And if you get
a 3 it's like getting a B -, C+, C. And so
it's really important that you understand
the mechanics of the test to do well. And
it's basically broken down into two parts.
You have section one, which is going to be
multiple choice section. And then you have
section two which is going to be free response.
And each of those sections are going to give
you half of your score on the AP exam. So
it's fifty percent in each of those. And that's
different than the way it was in the past.
First part is going to be multiple choice.
And you're going to have 90 minutes to complete
it. You're going to have 63 multiple choice
questions. And each of those questions are
going to have four responses. It used to be
five in the past. And then you're going to
have six grid-in questions. Grid-in questions
are you're going to use a calculator to answer
this. It's going to be a problem and then
you're going to grid-in your responses and
I'll show you how to do that. In the free
response or the essay portion, you're going
to have 10 minutes to read the essays and
then you're going to have 80 minutes to write
your essays. And those essays, there are going
to be eight of them. You're going to have
two long free response for essay questions
and then you're going to have six short free
responses. And so let's get to the multiple
choice. If I could give you some tips, the
first tip would be to study. Don't cram. If
you prepare over a long period of time you
can do better on this portion. You should
use a study book to prepare. I like the Cliffs
Notes book. The problem is that if it's before
2013 it's going to be for the old test. And
so the content might help you but the test
is simply going to confuse you. And then you
should take a bunch of practice exams. So
there are going to be those in those review
books. But you should also be able to find
a bunch of questions online. And for multiple
choice you want to do as many of these questions
as you can. It's going to give you practice
and it's going to give you confidence. You
want to budget your time. Even though there
are 60 some multiple choice questions, 63,
the grid-in questions are going to take a
longer period of time. And so you want to
make sure that you're not spending too much
time on those multiple choice questions so
you can't get to the grid-in. And then you
want to use a process of elimination. In other
words you can write on your test. And so you
want to start crossing off answers if you
know that those aren't right. And then you
may have to eventually come to the point where
you make a guess. Watch out for reverse questions.
And so you can have questions that will say
for example, all of the following are found
in cellular respiration except. And if you
don't see that word except, you're going to
jump at the first wrong answer. And so let
me give you an example of a multiple choice
question. You could go to this website down
here on the bottom, AP. The College Board
has released a practice questions and so you
could go through a bunch of them as practice.
And so basically what you're going to get
is you're going to get a lot of information
at the top. Probably more information than
they used to get on the AP Biology exam. In
this case they're giving you information on
a lab and they're telling you some data right
here. And then they're going to basically
send you to the question. In this questions
they're talking about what should be included
in this setup. And so the right answer in
this case is going to be A. But then you'll
notice that they're going to give you another
question that's related on that same. And
so you may have three questions that just
go from this certain amount of information
that you get a the beginning. And so you could
pause the video if you want to take a look
at this and then guess what the right answer
is. In this case the right answer is A again.
And so I don't want to go over these questions,
I just kind of want to show you what they're
going to look like. You then move on to the
grid-in portion. The grid-in portion you're
going to have an area where you can work and
you're also going to be able to use a four
function calculator. So not you're TI-84,
but you are going to be able to use a simple
calculator. So that mean's that there's going
to be problems that require you to use a calculator.
The answers that you get you're going to grid-in.
And let me show what that means. Let's say
you get the answer 502. You're basically going
to fill in it on a form like this. You'd write
502 right here but then you're going to have
to grid-in the 5, the 0 and the 2. And for
a lot of these questions there's going to
be a range and so you're answer has to be
in a specific range. If you were to grid in
502 you could do it like that, but you could
also do it like that and you could also do
it like that. And they've assured us that
the computer is going to figure out that you
got the right answer. But how do you put in
something like this? -4.13. How would you
grid that in? Well you can see that there's
a negative right here. And so you would first
of all write it across the top, -4.13. But
then you're going to grid it in just like
this. You've got to put a decimal point in
there so the computer can read that. Or let's
say we were to do -2/10, and I probably should
simplify that, but how would you put that
in? You're going to put a negative again,
but then we're going to be able to put this
fraction bar in. So you can say it's -2/10.
So that's how you physically put in your answer.
But what are the questions going to look like
on the grid-in portion? Well here's an example
of one. So they're giving you a genetic problem
up here. They're saying that we're planting
146 seeds. These are the plants that come
up. And then they're asking you to calculate
the Chi-squared value. Now you might freak
out like I don't know what the Chi-squared
formula is. Well the nice thing about the
test is they're going to give you a formula.
You can find that on the website as well and
it's going to give you all the formulas that
you might have to use on the test. In this
case it's going to give the Chi-squared. But
don't think you're going to go into the test
and just be able to kind of since I've got
all the formulas I'm going to be able to figure
it out. You want to make sure you go through
that formula sheet so you know what the formulas
actually mean. And so in this case we figure
out our expected values and then you're going
to come up with your observed values and then
come up with a Chi-squared test, what the
answer is. Let's go on to the essay portion.
The essay portion, after the multiple choice
basically you get a break. And they give you
a certain amount of time to break. And then
you're going to have the essay portion. For
the essay portion they'll give you a sheet
that looks, this is on of my old students
sheets, and basically they'll let you see
all the essays and they'll let you write on
that sheet of paper, but you can't start writing
your essays yet. They'll give you ten minutes
to plan. This is super important. You'll want
to go through, read the questions. And you
want to kind of have a plan of attack so that
when the clock starts then you can start writing
your essay and doing the work. So you want
to write yourself a bunch of notes all over
this essay question form. Let me give you
some tips on the essay. You want to make sure
you read the question and then you read the
question and then you read the question again.
In other words, read it over and over and
over again. Make sure you know what they're
actually asking. You don't want to miss points
because you didn't really understand what
they were asking. You want to answer everything.
Don't leave any place blank. You want to make
a stab at it. You want to budget your time.
And you want to leave space in your answer
form. In other words if you know that, man
there's one more thing that I want to talk
about. Leave space. Go on. And then come back
and then you can fix the essay a little bit
later. You want to understand direction words.
What are those? Well in the essays they're
going to be, they're going to be direction
words that tell you basically what they want.
So it might say to explain how photosynthesis
gets free energy from the sun. Or they may
ask you to describe the different steps in
the cell cycle. Or discuss the results that
you see. And these terms are super important.
And the reason they look weird here is that
I went through years of essays. I looked at
all of these direction words and I found the
ones that are asked most frequently. And these
are them. And so you're going to have propose
and construct and draw. Label. But these are
the big ones that you want to understand.
So you want to know what it means to explain
something. What does that mean? It means to
make it understandable. Or to describe is
to give properties of. And so you want to
make sure that what these terms are that you
can understand what they're really asking
for. So let's get to what a long free response
is going to look like. There's going to be
two of those. They're supposed to take you
about twenty minutes to answer each one. You'll
answer them in essay form. So you can't just
write bullet points. And you can't just write
an outline. You really have to write an essay.
Like an essay might be. And you'll write these
in pen. And so basically they're going to
have multi parts to it, these long responses.
So it's going to give you some information
here. It's going to ask you to graph the data
for part A. It's going to ask you to draw
a curve for part B. You can see here's some
of those direction words like explain, describe,
justify, draw, explain. We can see that again.
And so you're going to want to answer every
part of this. Now these essays are going to
be graded by humans in the summer. And so
you want to make sure that you're writing
so that they can read it and that you're making
sense. Don't worry about grammar. Don't worry
about spelling. You just want to get your
thoughts out there. Because you can get points
for everything that you do. And so basically
they'll show you how this one would be graded,
but you could get five points just from this
first part. Graph it and then to explain the
curve. You could get 2 points from this, 2
points from this, 3 points from this. So there's
a lot of points out there. The maximum you
can get would be ten points from one of these
long free responses. And so what that means
is I see way more then 10 here, and so you
can get your points in different areas. And
so you want to put out as much information
as long as it's the right information, you
want to put that forward. Short free responses
are going to look short. These should take
you about six minutes each and there's going
to be six of these. Again you write it in
essay form and you're going to use a pen to
do that. In this case they're giving you some
data and asking you to describe and explain.
This one right here, they're giving you data
and they're asking you to explain. So again
we see those direction words. And so you may
want to look at this url right down here.
And then look at the essays and then they'll
show you what you should have written. In
other words how these would be graded. So
you'll maybe get 4 or 3 points from this one.
So what do you study? What do you study to
get ready for this test. Well this year the
test is built on two things. We have what
are called science practices. And there are
seven of those. For example a student can
use representations in models to communicate
phenomena. A student can use mathematics.
I'm not going to list all of these. But basically
there are seven practices that you should
have developed throughout the year. Now I'm
going to make videos on each of these practices
and will have a link right here to a playlist
that's not done yet. It's going to bring you
to those practices so you know what they are.
And then we're going to have the content.
The essential knowledge. And there are 55
essential knowledges that you should understand
in AP Biology. And I've created a video for
each of these. And so there's going to be
a playlist again right here. You can click
on and it's going to bring you to a video
of each of these 55 essential understandings.
And basically the way the test is going to
be written is they're going to put those essential
knowledge on one side, 55 of them. The practices
on the other side. And then they're going
to choose the questions by simply saying,
Okay. Science Practice 2, using mathematics
and then this knowledge, let's say this is
about free energy, then they're going to have
a question that asks you to understand the
knowledge and then how to use the practice.
And so the test is different this year. They're
really going to have you doing more science.
They're going to have you doing math. And
not just doing factual recall. Because in
the previous test there were a lot of questions
that were simply essential knowledge. If you
know what happened in metaphase then you're
going to get that question right. It's different
now. The questions are going to be more difficult,
more application, but hopefully you've prepared
for that whole year. And I hope this was helpful.
