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Mr. Andersen describes the two portions of the AP Biology Test. Tips for answering multiple choice and free response questions are included. Sample questions from old AP tests are also included.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
00:04
hi it’s mr. Andersen today I’m going to
00:07
talk about the AP biology test the
00:09
reason I do that is if you have a better
00:12
understanding of how the test is put
00:14
together and what you’re going to
00:14
experience on that day you’re simply
00:16
going to do better on the test and so
00:18
first of all if you’ve never taken an AP
00:20
test before you’re going to get an
00:22
envelope in the mail this summer and
00:23
it’s going to show you what your score
00:25
is this is a distribution of the scores
00:27
on the 2010 test and so you can see here
00:31
scores vary from one to five if you get
00:33
anything 3 or higher that means that
00:35
you’ve passed the AP bio test and
00:38
anything lower than that means that
00:40
you’ve failed and so score of one or two
00:42
is failing and three four or five is
00:44
going to be passing you can see here
00:45
that last year 49 point two percent of
00:49
the people got a three or higher that
00:50
means 49 point two percent of the people
00:52
pass that means the majority of people
00:54
actually failed and we don’t want you to
00:56
end up in that boat and so your your
00:58
goal is to get as high a score as you
01:00
possibly can but in that envelope all
01:02
you’re going to see is your score you’re
01:04
never going to know if you did better on
01:06
multiple-choice or how that essay went
01:08
so that’s actually a good idea and so
01:10
all you’ll get is a score and your goal
01:12
remembers to get the highest score that
01:13
you possibly can okay how is the test
01:16
set up well when you get there there are
01:18
two portions to it the first portion
01:20
takes 80 minutes and that’s going to be
01:22
a hundred multiple-choice questions
01:24
that’s worth 60 percent of your grade
01:27
and so most of your grade is actually
01:30
going to come out of that first portion
01:31
of the test the way they do it is they
01:34
take all the people who take the test
01:35
it’ll be a hundred and eighty thousand
01:37
people they look at the distribution of
01:40
all the scores and then they just cut
01:41
off and say here’s our fives and here’s
01:44
our fours and here’s our threes and so
01:47
they just figure that out based on how
01:49
you compare against everybody else but
01:51
they don’t know that until you’ve
01:52
actually taken the test know this if you
01:54
do well on the multiple choice two
01:55
portion you’re going to do well on the
01:57
test you then get a 10-minute period
02:00
whether they’re going to give you the
02:02
questions on to the essay portion or the
02:04
free response portion you get 10 minutes
02:06
to read them and take notes on that and
02:08
then you get 90 minutes to actually
02:10
write your
02:11
say question or your essay questions and
02:14
so you get about 22 minutes on each of
02:15
those so multiple choice tips the
02:19
multiple-choice test will look like this
02:21
you’ll get a booklet and it’s going to
02:24
have a series of questions inside it
02:26
there’s going to be a hundred questions
02:27
you can write in the booklet but you’re
02:30
just going to put your answers on a
02:32
bubble sheet so you’re going to fill in
02:34
the bubble sheet and so here’s some tips
02:36
I’ve come up with that could maybe help
02:38
number one study in other words you want
02:40
to be studying in the month coming up to
02:42
the AP test you don’t want to be
02:44
cramming the night before simply not
02:46
going to help and it’s probably going to
02:47
stress you out a little bit that being
02:49
said you can study and so what I would
02:52
do is encourage you to get a study book
02:55
I like the AP by the cliffnotes one a
02:58
lot of students have that there’s a
02:59
bunch of different other of other ones
03:02
on the one thing that kind of ties all
03:04
these together is they have abbreviated
03:06
information on each of the different
03:08
topics but they also have practice tests
03:10
that are important and so I think taking
03:12
practice tests is also important but you
03:15
want to do that in the last week right
03:18
before you’re actually getting ready to
03:19
take the test if we get to the actual
03:21
multiple choice questions itself you get
03:23
45 seconds on each one some will be
03:25
really easy and don’t be tricked by that
03:27
some will be incredibly hard and so kind
03:29
of budget your time about 45 seconds per
03:31
question I would encourage you to use
03:33
the process of elimination in other
03:35
words since you can write in your book
03:36
cross off ones that are clearly wrong
03:38
and so you can pare it down and make an
03:40
educated guess on the end and then watch
03:43
out for the reverse questions what does
03:45
that mean ap biology the test is
03:47
notorious for asking reverse questions
03:49
in other words all of the following are
03:51
found in eukaryotic cell except and if
03:54
you didn’t see the word accept then
03:55
you’re going to jump in and circle
03:57
nucleus right away and you’re going to
03:58
miss that question so watch out for
04:00
those reverse questions circle it or
04:02
somehow write a note to yourself so what
04:04
do they look like well these are some
04:06
old AAP questions you get 100 questions
04:10
80 minutes the first ones are going to
04:13
be of the normal variety and so this
04:15
would be a normal
04:17
ap bio question so the first 60% of the
04:19
questions are going to be like this I’m
04:22
not going to go through each question
04:23
but what you
04:23
want to do is you want to go through it
04:25
you want to cross out ones that are
04:27
clearly wrong and then you want to
04:28
circle the one that is correct so that’d
04:31
be a basic question the next ones are
04:33
going to be matching type questions
04:35
matching type questions what you’ll get
04:37
is a series of answers that could be
04:40
right and then you’ll have a number of
04:41
questions after that that match up to
04:43
the top be cautious of these matching
04:45
questions when you’re in elementary
04:46
remember one matched up with every other
04:49
one it’s not like that and so again it’s
04:51
notorious to have like in this one
04:53
tropical rainforest he is going to be
04:55
the right answer for the first question
04:57
but it’s also going to be the right
04:58
answer for the second one that looks
05:00
like Tyga is going to be right answer
05:01
for that and so watch out for those
05:03
questions and then the next ones are
05:05
going to be based on experiments not
05:08
only the labs that we do however an
05:10
understanding of those labs is super
05:11
important what you’ll get for the last
05:13
questions are usually a graph or a
05:17
summary of data and then you’re going to
05:19
have a series of questions that are
05:21
based on that data and so the right
05:24
answer for this the C but you’re really
05:27
going to have to understand how to read
05:29
a graph if you hope to get questions
05:30
like this again what you want to use
05:33
process of elimination move with pace I
05:37
wouldn’t keep question yourself if you
05:39
want it if you’re like I don’t know if
05:41
that’s right or not just go with your
05:42
gut instinct move on to the next
05:44
question don’t get stressed out about it
05:46
okay let’s get to the free response or
05:48
the essay question essay questions
05:50
you’re going to get ten minutes to read
05:52
the questions that’ll come in a you’ll
05:55
have a little pamphlet that looks like
05:56
this
05:57
it’ll have all four questions in it you
06:01
can see this is one of my old students
06:03
and she not only looked at each of the
06:06
questions but she wrote herself tons and
06:09
tons and tons of notes and so when she
06:12
was ready to write after those ten
06:13
minute period of time then she was able
06:16
to get busy on so there’s going to be
06:18
four questions those questions are based
06:20
on the first one is based on molecules
06:23
and cells next genetics evolution and
06:26
then there’s going to be two questions
06:27
based on organisms and populations what
06:29
does that mean two of the questions are
06:31
going to come from the material that we
06:32
covered in the first semester two of the
06:34
questions are going to come
06:35
the material that we covered in the
06:36
cement the second semester of a semester
06:38
– we’ll call that um no this however
06:42
that one of the questions is going to be
06:44
directly tied to a lab and so one of
06:48
these four questions is going to have a
06:50
lab component to it okay so here’s my
06:53
tips for free response first of all read
06:56
the question make sure you read the
06:58
question and understand what’s what the
07:00
question is asking after that you want
07:02
to read the question again and make sure
07:04
you understand what the question is
07:06
asking
07:07
I would even encourage you to maybe read
07:08
it again and make sure you understand
07:10
what the question is asking that’s the
07:12
most important thing that you really
07:14
understand what it’s what it’s asking as
07:16
you start to write an essay this is
07:18
going to be an essay unlike most essays
07:20
you’ve written don’t worry about grammar
07:21
don’t worry about spelling don’t worry
07:23
about word choice don’t worry about an
07:25
introductory paragraph when they grade
07:27
it they’re just looking for if you
07:28
answered the question and so don’t worry
07:31
about anything else except answering the
07:34
question budget your time you get about
07:36
22 minutes to each for each question so
07:38
you want to make sure in your book that
07:40
you leave yourself space after you’re
07:42
done so you can come back to that and
07:44
add material let’s say you’re doing Part
07:46
A but you want to move on to Part B
07:47
leave yourself a little bit of space in
07:49
there and so it looks neat um make sure
07:53
that you understand the direction words
07:55
and I’ll talk about that on the next
07:56
slide in other words in each question
07:58
there’s going to be a series of words
08:00
that direct you to answer that question
08:01
in a specific way and it’s it’s vital
08:04
that you understand what that’s
08:05
questions asking if it were to ask you
08:07
to compare contrast and you actually
08:08
describe you’re going to miss all of the
08:10
points so watch out for that and then
08:12
finally I love the cliffnotes books
08:15
because they give you 15 essays they
08:17
kind of went through the last essays and
08:19
they looked at which ones are asked most
08:20
commonly and so those 15 ones and you
08:23
can pause the video when you get there
08:24
write those down those are important you
08:26
really want to have standard
08:27
understandings of each of those essay
08:29
questions okay what I did as I went
08:31
through the last ten years of essay
08:34
questions and I looked for those
08:35
direction words and then threw them into
08:37
Wordle and this is what I got so these
08:39
are questions that you could get like to
08:40
discuss or to label or design or to
08:43
compare and so if you don’t understand
08:45
what these words mean you could really
08:47
screw up on
08:48
question I then looked at how often
08:50
they’re used however and what I found is
08:53
these ones show up over and over again
08:55
so you have to know how to identify so
08:58
identify is to indicate so if I were to
09:01
say identify the parts of a cell that
09:03
means to simply list the parts of the
09:05
cell if I were to ask you to discuss
09:08
discuss is a pretty open on ended kind
09:11
of a term so if you discuss something
09:14
you’re going to examine all the
09:16
different aspects of that and so if I
09:18
did to say discuss eukaryotic and
09:21
prokaryotic cells man that’s pretty
09:23
open-ended and you can go in a lot of
09:24
different directions to discuss and that
09:27
means you can get a lot of different
09:28
points next is to describe describe is
09:31
to characterize if I said describe
09:34
describe what a plant is then you’re
09:36
going to give all the characteristics of
09:37
a plant and then finally to explain what
09:40
you can see this is the biggest word
09:41
it’s the one used most often explained
09:43
is to make it understandable so to
09:46
answer the question now what ties all of
09:49
these together all four of these
09:51
together is that they are fairly
09:53
open-ended that means when they ask you
09:55
a question you’re not going to just
09:56
answer it in one sentence you could but
09:59
you’re only going to get one point for
10:00
that so what do I mean by points well
10:04
essays are graded on a ten-point scale
10:06
so your goal if you get a perfect score
10:10
on an essay and there’s four of them is
10:14
to get a 10 out of 10
10:15
now it’s graded by humans and humans
10:18
have ten fingers and so when they grade
10:20
it they’re simply looking at how many
10:21
points you get and then they’re going to
10:23
give you a score based on how you did
10:25
and so you want to get as many points as
10:27
you can and if you understand what it is
10:29
to be an open-ended question that’s
10:31
going to help a little bit so these are
10:33
those must know essay questions in other
10:36
words these are the ones that come up
10:37
over and over again they’re not going to
10:39
ask you these specific questions but
10:40
they have been asked over the last ten
10:43
years and so you want to make sure you
10:44
have a good Pat standard answer for each
10:47
of these questions so let’s look at what
10:50
an actual essay question might look like
10:51
this is one that was asked in 2010 and
10:54
so what you have here is a forest and
10:57
we’ve got some annual plants here
11:01
and those annual plants whoops annual
11:04
plants over time are moving towards
11:07
hardwood hardwood trees now this is
11:08
actually one of those cliff notes 15
11:10
this is the idea of succession so let’s
11:13
look at the question itself diagram
11:14
shows succession of communities you can
11:17
just list right away here’s one of those
11:18
dangerous words discuss
11:20
here’s describe and explain and three
11:25
and then here’s discuss again alright
11:28
and so I can I can pretty much go
11:30
through this and figure out how many
11:31
points you could get for this this first
11:33
one it’s just taking what happens to the
11:35
biodiversity so you’re going to get two
11:37
points for that this one there’s three
11:40
with both described and explained so
11:42
that’s going to be worth at least six
11:43
points this one down here is discuss two
11:46
things so that’s going to be four points
11:48
and so if you were to just read this
11:50
first one let’s say Part B and just
11:54
answer that with one sentence you’re
11:56
going to get hammered on the essay and
11:58
so let’s look at how this was actually
11:59
graded I don’t want to go through the
12:01
specifics however if you were to pause
12:02
it right here and write an essay then
12:05
you could look at the next two slides
12:06
and see how it’s actually graded so this
12:09
would be Part A you could have gotten
12:11
the maximum of two points but you get a
12:13
point for each of these bulleted points
12:16
if you simply just rephrase the question
12:19
and say shrubs become hardwoods you’re
12:22
not going to get any points for just
12:24
rephrasing the question but for each of
12:26
these bullets you get one point and so
12:28
you could get a maximum of two points in
12:30
Part A when you write the essay you want
12:32
to make sure this supposed question for
12:34
if I remember right and so you would
12:36
write four for a and then you’re just
12:37
going to write it out in sentence form
12:39
don’t use bullets but you’re going to
12:41
write it out in sentence form and answer
12:42
that essay question you can see for this
12:44
first part Part A you can actually get
12:46
maximum with two let’s look at the
12:48
second one this one they’re asking you
12:50
for three ways and then to describe and
12:53
explain and now understand this you
12:56
really had to understand what the word
12:58
abiotic means those are nonliving um but
13:01
for this one you can get a maximum of
13:02
six points and this is not an exhaustive
13:04
list it keeps going and going and going
13:06
and going and going so if you just said
13:08
you’re going to decrease in the
13:10
temperature because there’s going to be
13:12
shading from the trees you could
13:14
actually get two
13:15
points right there more if you talked
13:17
about the pH or the availability of
13:20
light and so again make sure that you
13:22
answer it in an open-ended way knowing
13:25
that if they list to list three describe
13:27
and explain you better do that don’t
13:30
worry about putting wrong information
13:31
but you want to make sure that you put
13:33
the right information right up front and
13:34
then the last one talks specifically
13:36
about succession this is primary and
13:38
secondary succession and you got two
13:40
points for each of those or two ways you
13:43
could get so that this was a described
13:45
question if I remember right so you
13:46
could get a total of four points on this
13:48
one and so when they graded this they
13:51
said to get a 10 you have to at least
13:53
get some of the points out of each but
13:54
again you could get six points out of
13:56
that middle portion get a pretty high
13:57
score what do I mean by high score this
14:00
test when this one was given last year
14:02
the average across the country was a two
14:05
point seven two out of ten what does
14:08
that mean if you understand how essays
14:10
are asked and that you don’t just try to
14:12
answer it in a few sentences you can
14:14
pick up a ton of points in a lot of
14:16
different areas and that can push you
14:18
way above that bell-shaped curve of how
14:21
people are doing on those essays and so
14:23
that can push you into that range of
14:24
four or five that’s what I want you to
14:27
do I want you to get the highest score
14:28
that you can it’s a test and so the one
14:32
way you can make sure that you’re going
14:33
to do bad on the test is to get stressed
14:35
out and get worried about it just be
14:37
confident be calm and just know what you
14:40
know and don’t be afraid of what you
14:43
don’t and so good luck
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.