abbeyej Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 I thought I had read posts from people who had used it and gone on to take the exam, but now I can't find any of those and wonder if perhaps I dreamt it. ;) I'd love to know if it really is stand-alone, or if one must supplement (and, if so, with a full textbook course or simply with an AP prep book). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emubird Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 We haven't done the exam, and are only halfway through the Thinkwell course. However, I would think it would be a bit tough to do the AP exam without a lot of supplemental problem solving. The little quizzes after each lecture aren't really enough. We also found about half the lectures to be difficult to follow. One of the lecturers is really good (Gordon Yee), but the other tends to cover too much and not explain enough. If we do eventually go on to do the AP test, I'm thinking we'd have to do a lot of review or relearning of that material that wasn't covered very well. But I would probably do this with a cheap chem text. You can pick up older editions very cheaply online at Amazon or Abebooks or some such place. You'd want a text that had a lot of problems, along with a solutions manual. For a student who didn't have a tutor or anyone in the house who could teach them chemistry, the Thinkwell lectures would be a really good resource, but they might need more. The Thinkwell Calculus lectures, though, tend to be pretty good, so I don't mean to make all of Thinkwell sound bad. (Actually, the chemistry isn't actually bad. It just isn't as good as it could be.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emubird Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 And I've wondered if these kind of online college lectures might be just as good as Thinkwell: http://lecturefox.com/chemistry/ I haven't looked into them, but they might be worth considering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowbeltmom Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 I'd love to know if it really is stand-alone, or if one must supplement (and, if so, with a full textbook course or simply with an AP prep book). I don't know about Thinkwell, but regardless of which course resources you use,to prep for the AP exam, I would definitely purchase the released exams from the College Board. These released exams will help your child see how the CB grades the free response questions. It was an eye-opener for my son last year when he took one of these old tests and found that even though he had arrived at the correct final answer, he would only have received 2/3 of the possible points for each problem because he did not state facts that he felt were too obvious to bother mentioning. The statement, "show your work" was raised to a whole new level.:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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