Welcome to your AP Biology Premium Prep, 2021 Edition. Your route to a high score on the AP Biology Exam depends a lot on how you plan to use this book. To help you determine your approach, respond to the following questions.
1. Rate your level of confidence about your knowledge of the content tested by the AP Biology Exam.
A. Very confident—I know it all
B. I’m pretty confident, but there are topics for which I could use help
C. Not confident—I need quite a bit of support
D. I’m not sure
2. If you have a goal score in mind, choose your goal score for the AP Biology Exam.
5 4 3 2 1 I’m not sure yet
3. What do you expect to learn from this book? Choose all that apply to you.
A. A general overview of the test and what to expect
B. Strategies for how to approach the test
C. The content tested by this exam
D. I’m not sure yet
AP Biology Premium Prep, 2021 Edition is organized to provide as much—or as little—support as you need, so you can use this book in whatever way will be most helpful to improving your score on the AP Biology Exam.
The remainder of Part I will provide guidance on how to use this book and help you determine your strengths and weaknesses.
Part II of this book contains Practice Test 1 along with the answers and explanations. (A bubble sheet is provided before Test 1. Additional sheets can be found in your free online student tools.) We recommend that you take this test before going any further in order to realistically determine:
your starting point right now
which question types you’re ready for and which you might need to practice
which content topics you are familiar with and which you will want to carefully review
Once you have nailed down your strengths and weaknesses with regard to this exam, you can focus your test preparation, build a study plan, and use your time efficiently.
Part III of this book will:
provide information about the structure, scoring, and content of the AP Biology Exam
help you to make a study plan
point you toward additional resources
Part IV of this book will explore:
how to attack multiple-choice questions
how to write high-scoring free-response answers
how to manage your time to maximize the number of points available to you
Part V of this book covers the content you need for your exam.
Part VI of this book contains Practice Tests 2, 3, and 4, and their answers and explanations. Compare your progress between these tests and with Practice Test 1. If you answer a certain type of question wrong several times, you probably need to review it. If you answer it wrong only once, you may have run out of time or been distracted. In either case, comparing your progress will allow you to focus on the factors that caused the discrepancy in scores and to be as prepared as possible on the day of the test.
You may choose to prioritize some parts of this book over others, or you may work through the entire book. Your approach will depend on your needs and how much time you have. Let’s now examine how to make this determination.
1. Take Practice Test 1
Before you can decide how to use this book, you need to take a practice test. Doing so will give you insight into your strengths and weaknesses, and the test will also help you make an effective study plan. If you’re feeling test-phobic, remind yourself that a practice test is just a tool for diagnosing yourself—it’s not how well you do that matters. As long as you try your best, you can glean invaluable information from your performance to guide your preparation.
So, before you read further, take Practice Test 1 starting at this page of this book. Be sure to finish in one sitting, following the instructions that appear before the test.
2. Check Your Answers
Using the answer key on this page, count the number of multiple-choice questions you answered correctly and the number you missed. Don’t worry about the explanations for now and don’t worry about why you missed questions. We’ll get to that soon.
3. Reflect on the Test
After you take your first test, respond to the following questions:
• How much time did you spend on the multiple-choice questions?
• How much time did you spend on each free-response question?
• How many multiple-choice questions did you miss?
• Do you feel you had the knowledge to address the subject matter of the free-response questions?
• Do you feel you wrote well-organized, thoughtful responses to the free-response questions?
4. Read Part III of this Book and Complete the Self-Evaluation
As discussed in the Guide section above, Part III will provide information on how the test is structured and scored. It will also set out areas of content that are tested.
As you read Part III, re-evaluate your answers to the questions above. At the end of Part III, you will revisit and refine those questions. You will then be able to make a study plan, based on your needs and time available, that will allow you to use this book most effectively.
5. Engage with Parts IV and V as Needed
Notice the word engage. You’ll get more out of this book if you use it intentionally than if you read it passively, hoping for an improved score through osmosis.
The strategy chapters in Part IV will help you think about your approach to the question types on this exam. Part IV will open with a reminder to think about how you approach questions now and then close with a reflection section asking you to think about how or whether you will change your approach in the future.
The content chapters in Part V are designed to provide a review of the content tested on the AP Biology Exam, including the level of detail you need to know and how the content is tested. You will have the opportunity to assess your mastery of the content of each chapter through testappropriate questions.
6. Take Another Test and Assess Your Performance
Once you feel you have developed the strategies you need and gained the knowledge you lacked, you should take Practice Test 2, which starts on this page of this book. You should finish in one sitting, following the instructions at the beginning of the test.
When you are done, check your answers to the multiple-choice sections. See if a teacher will read your essays and provide feedback.
Once you have taken the test, reflect on what areas you still need to work on and revisit the chapters in this book that address those deficiencies. Once you feel confident, take Practice Test 3, and repeat the process. Take Practice Test 4, and repeat the process again. Through this type of reflection and engagement, you will continue to improve.
7. Keep Working
After you have revisited certain chapters in this book, continue the process of testing, reflection, and engaging with the content in this book and online. Consider what additional work you need to do and how you will change your strategic approach to different parts of the test.
As we will discuss in Part III, there are other resources available to you, including a wealth of information at AP Students, the official site of the AP Exams. You can continue to explore areas that can stand improvement and engage in those areas right up to the day of the test.