AP Biology Examination

1
AP Biology Examination

• Important facts and exam analysis

2
Start with the booklet

• Use the green Released Exam booklet for this
  session.
• Page one - who and how
• Page two - M. choice and Free Response. Note that
  they are looking for students to relate content,
  be novel and put numbers to what they are saying.

3
Scoring the exam

• By all accounts, the AP exams are scored fairly.
  I have yet to be surprised by a students score
  (sometimes a 3 is a 4 on a good day and the other
  way around).
• Pages 2 3 provide details.
• Proper completion of the course and lab
  objectives is crucial to student success. (page 4
  and 5)

4
Content - Format

• All three units are covered by the following
  percentages.I Molecules and Cells - 25II
  Heredity and Evolution - 25III Organisms and
  Populations - 50
• Section I - 120 M.Choice questions (60)
• Section II - 4 Free answer questions (40)
• Labs are important in both sections.

5
Instructions

• The Instructions are very detailed!!
• Skip the details and go to page 14. Examine the
  instructions for M.choice.
• Students should know M.Choice instructions before
  the get to the start page. They should just start
  writing - time is important, these exams are
  designed not to be finished.
• What is the guess strategy? Very important!

6
Try Some!

• Give some of the multiple choice a try. Ill time
  you for completion of questions 11 - 20 (page
  16-18) 7min and 30 seconds.
• Go! Just note your answers in the book.
• Answers B, D, A, E, B, A, A, D, B, D
• 2 of those 10 were related directly to labs.
• Did you guess. How did it work?

7
Free Response

• Page 49 instructions for the free response.
• Note that they are looking for the students to
  demonstrate more than knowledge.
• Clearly, knowledge is required to do well in this
  section. Student must emphasised correct
  terminology. Buzz words include hypothesis,
  control, quantify, steps of scientific method,
  statistics, model.
• Others?

8
Free Response

• Take some time to examine one or two essay
  questions.
• It is very important that students be taught to
  plan their answers before they start pouring
  information out the end of a pen.
• See pages 59, 75, 84 and 93 for details relating
  to teachers.

9
How Grades are Determined

• This starts on page 94.
• Grades are not raw scores, they are manipulated
  to make a mark distribution table. (page 97).
• What the mark means as a letter grade is on page
  98.
• end