AP Spanish: Preparing for the Language Examination

This workbook, which our AP Spanish teacher provided us, was extremely helpful in preparing for the 2008 AP Spanish exam. All the activities, including the narratives, dialogues, reading passages, speaking conversations, and speaking presentations, were very similar to those on the actual AP test. This workbook also has extensive reference material, such as commonly used verbs, idiomatic phrases, conversational phrases, grammar rules, that also help in preparing for the Spanish exam. If your teacher does not use this book as a supplement to the class like my teacher did, I would buy the answer key and the audio CDS seperately to obtain the maximum benefit from this book. If you do the majority of the activities in this book well, you will most likely earn a 4 or 5 on the actual exam!

The newly updated (written in 2006 or 2007) version of this workbook, which our AP Spanish teacher provided us, was extremely helpful in preparing for the 2008 AP Spanish exam. All the activities, including the narratives, dialogues, reading passages, speaking conversations, and speaking presentations, were very similar to those on the actual AP test. This workbook also has extensive reference material, such as commonly used verbs, idiomatic phrases, conversational phrases, grammar rules, that also help in preparing for the Spanish exam. If your teacher does not use this book as a supplement to the class like mine did, I would buy the answer key and the audio CDS to get the maximum benefit from this book. If you do the majority of the activities in this book well, you will most likely earn a 4 or 5 on the actual exam!

This book has been fully updated and reflects the changes made to the 2007 AP Spanish Language exam. In this book, Jose Diaz gives you ample practice for each section of the new exam. For the multiple choice section: The listening practice is comprehensive with numerous long and short audio selections. There are more than 40 reading sections to practice and perfect your reading comprehension skills. The questions reflect the new item types that will be part of the new exam. For the free response section: There are several pages of fill-in practice for both fill-in sections: with root words and without. Several prompts are given for the email/letter test section (32 to be exact). There is also ample practice (17 total) for the new integrated skills essay, where students read 2 articles and listen to an audio source. For the speaking sections, there are 20 practice sections for the new directed dialogue/phone conversation test items and 20 for the new simulated in-class presentation--here students must read an article and listen to an audio source combining the two in their 'in-class presentation' of 2 minutes. This book is really all you need to be well-prepared for the AP Spanish exam starting in May 2007. What are the drawbacks to this book? Unless you buy the Audio CD's, sold separately and from the publisher, you can't really practice the audio sections. Without the teacher's guide, also sold separately and from the publisher, you won't know if your answers are correct for the multiple choice and fill-in sections. If you're not in a classroom setting, you won't know if the essay or short letter you have written or if your dialogue and in-class presentation are on track for the score you want. The latter is true of any other test prep book on the market. All in all, I would say that buying this program is well worth the money; especially since this is one of the few test prep books that has actually been changed to reflect the new 2007 AP Spanish exam.

This book is simply the best Spanish grammar question book that I have ever seen. We used it in AP Span Language class my junior year.. at first assignments in it were dreaded, and most people would get a 50% or less, but as we went through the year, learning more, with these exercises as reinforcement, the constructions, tenses, etc became second nature. The AP test was no problem after this book.. but forgetting that test, and just thinking about this for grammar in general, its great. Touches all categories and formats of questions... good reading selections... high quality in general. I'm actually about to buy a copy for myself, as I've gotten a little rusty in grammar after a long time of pure literature studies. It's just that good.

This book is simply wonderful. The only two minor drawbacks I can think of are 1) the audio tapes are quite expensive to get for yourself and 2) to get maximum benefit use as a companion to an AP course, a Barron's book, or something. The excercises are numerous, challenging, and much like the AP exam. It'll take diligence to work through all the excercises, but once you do and take the AP exam in May, the test will seem so familiar, you'll ace it for sure with a 4 or 5. Of course having the answers helps, but those can be obtained by contacting an AP teacher or something. ¡Que tengas éxito con estudiar y repasar para el examen!