AP Bio without having had a regular high school Bio course?

[yvonne]

My daughter took Physics with Jetta (great class!!) in 9th grade and Chemistry w/ lab in 10th grade at our local hybrid (also a great class with an instructor w/ a Stanford Chem PhD).  She would like to take AP Bio this coming year but hasn't had a high school bio class. She knows it will be a lot of memorization.

Has anyone's student taken AP Bio without first taking a regular HS bio class? 

Thanks!

[3andme]

We are doing that right now. I won't know until July when AP scores come out whether we have been successful. It's a lot of content so any prior knowledge would be helpful to reduce the load. The chemistry background will certainly help in the molecular biology sections. Unfortunately, my ds did not have that advantage so that was a struggle. We have been using Campell's Biology with Thinkwell lectures for self study. I'll post back in the summer with more reflections.

[GoodGrief]

One of my daughters went straight to AP Bio (the PAHS course). It was fine. She had a pretty solid elementary/middle school science background though that did hit on some bio topics.

[Targhee]

I think it will be ok, and there’s an advantage in having already done chem.  There will be lots to learn and memorize, but understand generally chemistry and physics will make cellular level biological processes more understandable instead of a long series of things with weird names to memorize.

[daijobu]

My daughter took AP bio at SOHS last year, and had not had high school biology prior, but she did take AP chem and I think it was a prereq, but not 100% sure.  She got a 5.  

[Roadrunner]

45 minutes ago, daijobu said:

My daughter took AP bio at SOHS last year, and had not had high school biology prior, but she did take AP chem and I think it was a prereq, but not 100% sure.  She got a 5.  

How many hours did she study for it?

would you say she found it harder or easier than AP Chem?

[AFwife Claire]

Neither of my 2 older boys had a previous high school bio class before I taught them AP bio, but they did have a fairly rigorous junior high life science class.  They both got 4's on the exam.  My oldest took it the first year of the redesigned test, so we were really flying blind, and I was thrilled that the kids in my class got 4's.   I was definitely more prepared when teaching my second son, and others did get 5's, but it was not his favorite subject, so not a huge priority for him, time-wise.  He did all the reading, assignments, etc., but he didn't study as much as I wished!   

[daijobu]

6 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

How many hours did she study for it?

would you say she found it harder or easier than AP Chem?

I'm not that involved in her studying anymore, but I'd say they were pretty similar in difficulty and workload.  AP chem was the only AP she took that year, and by far the most demanding class.  AP bio she took alongside AP stats which isn't that time consuming.  

[ccolopy]

DS took AP Biology (at home) without having taken a regular biology course. It was more time-consuming than we anticipated, but DS did well and felt it was worth the extra effort just to "get it over with". He's more of a math/physics guy, and would not have enjoyed spending two years on biology in high school. 

[DocMom]

On 4/22/2018 at 12:45 AM, daijobu said:

I'm not that involved in her studying anymore, but I'd say they were pretty similar in difficulty and workload.  AP chem was the only AP she took that year, and by far the most demanding class.  AP bio she took alongside AP stats which isn't that time consuming.  

 

Do you think AP chemistry and AP calculus in the same year is too much?

[daijobu]

Well, it depends on your student's work ethic and how comfortable s/he is with math.  Dd17 (turned 17 today!) took AP Calc BC, APUSH, AP Lang and Comp, and AP Physics C (both halves) this her junior year (against my advice).  And she did fine.  

I think as long as your student makes the AP classes a priority and resolves to not fall behind, she should be okay.  (Dd believes AP bio > AP chem in terms of difficulty, but that assessment varies with the student.)

[Reefgazer]

Having had chemistry first will be a tremendous help, and if she handled AP Chem already, she's in good shape.  But in my experience, AP Bio without a previous biology course is a struggle for most students.