In this pilot episode, Melanie unpacks the AP Program and describes how the newly designed Biology Exam is structured for 2020.
In this pilot episode, Melanie unpacks the AP Program and describes how the newly designed Biology Exam is structured for 2020. Students learn how to keep an appropriate pace on the multiple choice section (1:17) and some tips for practice (2:10). She explains that not all FRQ questions are valued the same and require active responses (2:56). Melanie gives away a teacher secret (3:08) and reminds students what to bring on the day of the exam (3:30). How many questions do you need to get correct (3:48)? Don’t forget to complete your Progress Checks (5:00) to shape your study strategy.
The Question of the Day (6:02) asks “T/F - You can earn partial credit on the multiple choice and the FRQ section of the exam.”
Thank you for listening to The APsolute RecAP: Biology Edition!
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Hi and welcome to the APsolute Recap: Biology Edition. Today’s episode will recap exam structure and an overview of what to expect on the actual day.
The AP Biology exam is 3 hours long - I know, thats a long time to take a test. It includes multiple choice questions and FRQs, or free response questions. As students, you’ve taken many tests with multiple choice questions in the past - so what makes an AP exam any different? Well, its harder - but you can do it. These multiple choice questions are taken in 90 minutes. Which means that half of the time you are testing, you are answering multiple choice questions. The biggest thing you need to know is you need to hustle. You need to think, but you also need to hustle. If you are placed properly in the multiple choice section of the exam, you are taking approximately 90 seconds to answer each question. This means that 45 minutes into the exam, you should be on question 30 or 31.
How do you get to this pacing? Well, practice. It can be really hard to get to a point of answering these questions so quickly. But the more that you practice, the better you will get. Its kind of like baseball. If you’re stepping up to the plate - you’ve taken some practice swings. And you’ve probably swung a bat that has a weight on the end. When you are practicing to take these multiple choice questions, challenge yourself. Try to complete them at first in two minutes, working your way up to 90 seconds, and then to really challenge yourself in those last few weeks leading up to the exam, work on finishing multiple choice questions at a faster pace than necessary. On the day of the exam, you will be allowed to bring in a watch. But this has to be a traditional, non smartphone style watch. Having a watch on your wrist while you are practicing will allow you to feel more comfortable using this as a pacing guide on the day of the exam.
The other 90 minutes of testing will come from free response questions. There are six of them. Question 1 and 2 of the FRQ responses are scored between 8 and 10 points each. You should expect to spend approximately 22 minutes answering each of these questions. Both questions 1 and 2 focus on interpreting and evaluating experimental results. Question 2 has an additional graphing component. We’ll focus on some graphing skills on a future episode. Questions 3-6 are shorter and valued at only 4 points a piece. They cover scientific investigation, concept analysis, analyzing models and visual representations, as well as data. Many of these responses require action items by you, the student. Knowing this information is only a piece of this puzzle. But here at the APsolute RecAP, we will ensure that you feel comfortable not only with the content, but also with the skills necessary to be successful on the exam.
I’m going to give you a secret. The information that your teachers have, you can have too. The CED, or course exam description, is a PDF document that is released by the College Board and readily available online. I encourage you to download this document. In it, it will have practice questions, layouts of the exam, as well as an overview of all eight units that you will be expected to study.
So I said that you can bring a watch, and I highly encourage you to do so. You also will be allowed to bring in a calculator. This calculator can either be a four function, a scientific, or a graphing calculator. You can expect to need this tool on both the multiple choice and free response questions.
How is your exam scored? Well, all AP exams are scored on the same 5 points scale. However, not all percentage correct questions equates to the same score on an exam. What I mean by that is getting half of the information correct on one type of topic may get you a three while on another topic, it may get you a four. The methods of these scorings do change from year to year, and because the biology curriculum was redesigned for the 2020 test - the ratios of scores have not been released. However, as a general rule, if you are earning a 5 on an AP exam, this correlates to having an A’s content knowledge in a college level course. A 4 represents being comfortable with the material to earn a B, B+ or A-. Whereas a 3 represents a C, C+ or B- grade.
One of the great innovations of this new school year and the redevelopment of the college board online platforms was launching of AP classroom. If you are signed up to take the exam in May, you’ve already registered through AP classroom. However, it has many more tools than just to sign up. The AP Classroom consists of practice question, called progress checks, that allow you to get instant feedback on how comfortable and how capable, and how ready you are for all of the information coming up for your exam. If you have not yet practiced with any of these questions, I encourage you to speak to your teacher. Ask them to assign them. The purpose of these questions is for practice. They will not count against your grade in class. But this will give you a realistic expectation of what you know and what you don’t. Half of the struggle of preparing for an exam is to figure out what you need to work on. Once you’ve completed your progress checks, you’ll have a better understanding of what you still need to study. That's where the APsolute Recap Biology edition comes in.
To recap.
The biology exam consists of two sections. The first, a multiple choice section, is 90 minutes long and contains 60 questions. The second is free response questions. This is also 90 minutes long and contains 6 questions. Parts 1 and 2 are equally weighted and will both contribute toward your score. Remember, AP exams are scored on a scale of 1-5.
Today’s question of the day is about exam structure.
True or False - you can earn partial credit on both the multiple choice and FRQ section of the exam.