Cracking the AP Chemistry A & AB Exam, 2004-2005 Edition

This book definitely saved my life. I was expecting barely a 3 on the exam; I got a 5, almost 95% due to buying this book. With barely a month left before the exam, with a teacher who had never taught the class before and an absolutely AWFUL, overcomplicated textbook, I bought this book and began looking through its sample questions and reading its review. Not only did the review contain information that showed up directly on the exam, the sample questions were formatted in nearly exactly the same way. My recommendation- DEFINITELY get this book, then study like mad. Do as many problems as you possibly can, and make sure to read over the explanations, since they REALLY help. Good luck, and don't stress too much!

Let me start off by saying that i had a terrible terrible teacher. He was extremely incompetent and lazy. So for anyone with a really bad teacher then my amazing review is for you. The high point of this book is that it has tons of practice questions. The book is split up into different sections such as gas laws, thermodynamics, nuclear chemistry and so on. At the end of each section there are 15- 30 questions on the topic and 3-6 essay questions. The questions are a little easy, but the essays are often challenging and cause you to see a new aspect on the topic. Each section is only a few pages and provides the bare bones on the topic. If you dont have any foundation this book probably isnt a good place to start. It is excellent at refreshing memory if you once knew chemistry. I had almost 0 foundation so i used my text book with this review book. It is even good if you use this book at the beginning of the year as you read each chapter. The practice tests were good but much easier than the actual test so expect a slightly lower score on the real thing. If you master this book you can easily get a 3 and maybe a 4. However if you want a 5, like me, USE MORE SOPHISTICATED RESOURCES such as your text book or the Barrons. This book is not good enough to alone get you a 5 unless you are already smart enough to get a 5.

This book is the best study aid I've ever used before. I actually used the 02-03 edition, but the book has remained essentially unchanged for the past few years. I didn't have an AP Chem class, only Chem 3, which did only so much to prepare me for the test. Instead I read through this book 2-3 times (which actually didn't take that long after I read it the first time) and did a few practice free reponse tests. I devoted all my studying time to this test (and not to my English Lit or US History, both of which I got 4's on), and doing this got me a solid 5 on the AP Chem. There were maybe 2-3 questions on the entire test I didn't know. Overall, this book covers almost every aspect that the test can test you on, with the exception of something that has to do w/ absorbity (which is new to the test, and I chose not to do that free response problem), and some lab questions, which you must learn on your own in a real lab situation. If you are taking the AP Chem test, buy this book or rent it from your local library (like me). It will be well worth it!

I took AP Chemistry last year and yesterday I just got my scores. I got a 5 in chemistry! I was shocked because I had a horrible chemistry teacher who told us nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, and labs wouldn't be on the test which is why he didn't cover it! This book (the 02-03 edition) helped me significantly because of all its practice questions and nicely explained explainations. It makes chemistry seem so easy and if you memorize everything in that book (and know labs), you will ace the AP test. There were only 4 questions out of 75 on the AP test that I didn't know! Another excellent book was the CliffNotes book for those of you who are like me and had a chemistry teacher who did not do any of the labs. That book gives a lot of details on the labs so you will get all the lab questions right even if you've never done a lab. But one important thing to remember is you can not cram with APs. I started studying 3 months with this book before the test and I took a lot of real practice tests.