AP Chem

[Hisaam]

Anyone currently in AP Chem? School just started for me yesterday and we haven't done much of anything yet. I go to a school with over 2000 students and Chem is by far the least-taken course. Lots of people take BC calc, Bio, Lang, Lit, etc. But last year there were only 8 people who stayed in the AP Chem class from the beginning to the end. It's a little intimidating, but so far we have just reviewed really basic stuff (so far AP Bio has had more Chem than AP Chem itself)...

I know it's going to get hard really fast, just wondering what I should expect and how everyone else is handling it!

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[whynot7]

I'm also taking AP Chem this year...yesterday was my second day of school, and we already had a test, whoo
this is going to be a looooong year

 

[MarylandMatt]

I'm taking it. Seems challenging, have to memorize like 20 polyatomic ions (names, formulas, and charges) by Monday.

 

[whynot7]

dude, I had to do that in one night...my school must be ******ed.

 

[chemtopper]

Chemistry is a simple subject if you take a systymatic approach for it.You can master this subject if understand every concept and do more practice on the same concept with problem solving
Zumdhal- zumdhal is one of the best book for AP chemistry/ general chemistry

 

[FantasyVesperia]

I took it last year and it was pretty fun. My advice to you would be to stay on top of your game. Studying is not really an option for this class, studying what you went over the evening after school is clever, as well glancing at the new material for next class. Also remember that in chemistry stacks on itself. Some problems require different skills from different chapters to arrive at an answer.

The main thing is practice, practice, practice. If you don't understand a concept, read until you do or get some help. This class is demanding but totally doable.

 

[Bernoulli]

Anyone currently in AP Chem? School just started for me yesterday and we haven't done much of anything yet. I go to a school with over 2000 students and Chem is by far the least-taken course. Lots of people take BC calc, Bio, Lang, Lit, etc. But last year there were only 8 people who stayed in the AP Chem class from the beginning to the end. It's a little intimidating, but so far we have just reviewed really basic stuff (so far AP Bio has had more Chem than AP Chem itself)...

I know it's going to get hard really fast, just wondering what I should expect and how everyone else is handling it!

My high school didn't have AP courses, but we did have Advanced/Honors Chemistry. The best thing you can do is read the chapter before class, take good notes, review the chem notes later that day, and do practice problems in the book. My class had a lot of memorization. As someone else mentioned, you will have to memorize a good 20+ polyatomic ions in one night. My instructor gave a quiz on it the next day because it is extremely important that you learn them. Don't treat the course like others where you learn the material for the test and forget it afterwards because a lot of areas in chemistry require a thorough understanding of previous chapters. Be sure you completely understand stoichiometry. Make a list of solubility rules when you get to that. Commit easy equations and constants to memory so you won't have to look them up. I'm mainly talking about Avogadros Number, Planks Constant, Speed of Light, Molarity = Mol/L, Density = M/V, 1 cm^3 = 1 ml, etc. Always do the assigned homework (and maybe more if you are sketchy on a subject) and ask questions if you don't understand something. If your course covers acid/base equilibrium, be sure you can solve quadratic equations.

That's all I can think of at the moment. If I think of anything else, I'll edit this post.

 

[MarylandMatt]

What are your class sizes like? My AP Chem class has 32 students in it.

As a comparison, AP Bio last year had 10...

 

[Hisaam]

Interesting. This year the AP Chem class has about 20 people, though last year there were only 8. My teacher seems pretty cool, he told us we should spend about an hour a day 7 days a week to be successful. So far we've just reviewed (dimensional analysis, nomenclature,) basic stuff. I'm sure it will start to pick up pretty soon.

Has anyone done any cool labs yet?

 

[EvenStevens]

I'm in it right now, we are at chapter 4 now
using Zumdahl, favorite class so far

 

[dancinonwater]

I'm currently in AP/IB Chem as well as AP/IB Biology. My school also has only a few kids in the AP chem class, s it's supposed to be the hardest class. My school has the IB program, so I'll take the AP exams after the first year of my advanced sciences and then the IB exam in may of my senior year. And I have Zumdahl, Zumdahl! It's gonna be a fantastic year!