Preparing for the **New** AP Biology exam

This post is going to be extremely short!  I recently received a newsletter from Carolina Biological that had a great article called, "Earning a 5: Successful Test Taking Strategies for the New AP Biology Exam."  I thought the article was great, and I immediately shared it with all of my students.

If you are a teacher of AP Biology, I think you might find the article useful.  Click here for a link to the article.

Good Luck!!

AP Biology Review PowerPoints are available in  my TpT store.

AP Biology Exam: Teacher In Panic, Students Oblivious

<-------- The teacher feels 

      like this.....

.....and the students feel 

like this!  ----->

Sound familiar?

It is the time of the year when the AP Biology teacher (me) begins to panic.  There are only "x" number of teaching days left, and there is still "y" amount of material that must be covered!  PANIC!

Actually, my students are great.  But it is getting on toward spring time in my part of the country.  The students are tired....very tired!  They have worked hard all year, participated in a ton of extracurricular activities, and they are just worn out!!

It is a difficult time of the year to be sure.  I must continue to teach hard everyday to get all of the material covered.  At the same time, I need to get my students motivated for reviewing for the exam.  It is a fine line to balance.  Push them hard, but don't overload them.

I am fortunate to have a 70 minute class period. (Don't kill me....I realize how lucky I am!!)  Starting this week, we are going to spend the first 15 to 20 minutes of each class period reviewing.  I have written a set of review PowerPoints to use just for this purpose.  These are not teaching PowerPoints.  They are simply slide after slide of questions and answers.  I generally let the students get into groups and make a game out of it.  The group getting the most questions correct wins a prize.  Little Debbie Snake Cakes are a particular favorite award for my students.

Freebie:  Here is the link to one of my review PowerPoints that I have in my TpT store.  It is on organic compounds.  You can easily delete some of my slides and add more slides of your own.

Click picture to download.

If you like the free PowerPoint, you might be interested in my entire set of 25 different review PowerPoints.

Best of luck to you and your students on the AP exam!!  :)

Reviewing for the AP Biology Exam

Click picture to download PowerPoint.

The key to success is REVIEWING!!

If you have taught AP (Advanced Placement) Biology, then you know that the amount of material that must be covered before the exam is daunting.  I have had great success with my AP exam scores.  I normally have between 60 to 80 students take the exam each year.  For the 2011 exam, I had 65 students sit for the exam, and we had an average score of 4.3.  Admittedly, this is one of the best years I have ever had.  It was a great group of students who were highly motivated.  Those kids absorbed everything I threw at them.  They then dug deeper and deeper on their own outside of the regular class time.

The group I have this year makes me very proud!  I will have 61 taking the 2012 exam.  They are every bit as motivated and talented as the group I had last year.  They have such potential to do well!!  I just have to convince them how important it is to study and review for the exam.

I am convinced that the key to success is how you review the material with your students.  I began to review with my students on February 1.  I am most fortunate to have a 70 minute class each day.  I give a prayer of thanks for this each and every day, and I realize that most AP teachers do not have this luxury.  Beginning on February 1, I use the first 10 to 15 minutes of class to review a topic that we have previously covered earlier in the school year.  The remaining class time is used to cover new material.  The day before the AP exam in May, I am still reviewing and still covering new material!!

We have to convince our students that they must review, review, review before the exam.  I have written a set of powerpoints that I use for review. These are not teaching powerpoints.  These are just slide after slide of question and answer.  The students are not going to remember every little detail, so I try to make sure that they are solid on the basic facts.

Here is one of my review PowerPoints that I hope you will download.  It covers the characteristics of carbon and the organic compounds.

AP Review: Carbon and Organic Compounds ---- It's FREE!!  I hope you find this useful for your classroom.

Happy Teaching and good luck on the AP exam!

AP Biology Exam: It's Never Too Early to Start Reviewing

Click picture to download PowerPoint.

The key to success is REVIEWING!!

If you have taught AP (Advanced Placement) Biology, then you know that the amount of material that must be covered before the exam is daunting.  I have had great success with my AP exam scores.  I normally have between 60 to 80 students take the exam each year.  For the 2011 exam, I had 65 students sit for the exam, and we had an average score of 4.3.  Admittedly, this is one of the best years I have ever had.  It was a great group of students who were highly motivated.

I am convinced that the key to success is how you review the material with your students.  I begin to review with my students on February 1.  I am fortunate to have a 70 minute class each day.  I give a prayer of thanks for this each and every day, and I realize that most AP teachers do not have this luxury.  Beginning on February 1, I use the first 10 to 15 minutes of class to review a topic that we have previously covered earlier in the school year.  The remaining class time is used to cover new material.  The day before the AP exam in May, I am still reviewing and still covering new material!!

We have to convince our students that they must review, review, review before the exam.  I have written a set of powerpoints that I use for review. These are not teaching powerpoints.  These are just slide after slide of question and answer.  The students are not going to remember every little detail, so I try to make sure that they are solid on the basic facts.

Here is one of my review PowerPoints that I hope you will download.  It covers the characteristics of carbon and the organic compounds.

AP Review: Carbon and Organic Compounds ---- It's FREE!!  I hope you find this useful for your classroom.

Happy Teaching!