Favorite AP Chemistry syllabus and text?

[Clemsondana]

Next year I'm planning to do chemistry at home with my 9th grader, with an eye towards taking the AP test in the spring if I feel that student is ready.  I do not plan on doing the 'register your syllabus' thing - we'll just do chemistry and make our final decision after Christmas, although I know I'll have to deal with the stupid 'early AP registration' and finding a possible location earlier than that.  

There are lots of posted syllabus choices and a couple of text options, but does anybody have a favorite?  Bonus if it comes with decent tests, although that's not a requirement.  My husband is using my old college text as one of the risers for his computer monitor and I may even have my old college chem tests in a file drawer somewhere, but I was not a fan - surely there is something better out there now!  

[daijobu]

I'm wondering why you aren't "doing the 'register your syllabus' thing".  It's free, doesn't take much time,  and it unlocks a lot of practice tests and other study materials.  

Also, just by initiating the process, you have access to a few pre-approved syllabi, which can help you get started, even if you never officially receive approval as a teacher.  

My dd also took AP chem in 9th grade and did fine, though she took the PAH class.  

[pinkelement]

Not a syllabus, but I think Zumdhal's World of Chemistry is an excellent textbook. You can also get teacher's copy. Both available for very little for the older editions. They are colorful, well written and just friendly. We did that alongside of Spectrum Chemistry and eventually just switched to Zumdhal's textbook just because if was so much easier to follow and understand. I wonder if there are syllabus' posted for this particular text. 

[MamaSprout]

5 hours ago, pinkelement said:

Not a syllabus, but I think Zumdhal's World of Chemistry is an excellent textbook. You can also get teacher's copy. Both available for very little for the older editions. They are colorful, well written and just friendly. We did that alongside of Spectrum Chemistry and eventually just switched to Zumdhal's textbook just because if was so much easier to follow and understand. I wonder if there are syllabus' posted for this particular text. 

World of Chemistry is a pretty good text- this is a syllabus that lines up pretty well- but it isn't AP.

[Clemsondana]

@daijobu there are a couple of reasons.  I know some local homeschool families whose older kids are in or through college, and while several of the kids did well on AP exams none of them got approval for their syllabus - in their experience, the colleges cared about the exam score, not whether they were allowed to put the AP  designation on the transcript.  Also, once I had an approved syllabus, I'd feel bound to stick to it - it would feel dishonest to do something different - but I've always enjoyed being able to adapt if we don't like how things are going.  This could be a holdover from my days teaching at a community college, where a syllabus is treated almost like a contract.  🙂  I also know that, while this kid would work through a couple of practice exams and the reviews in one of the prep books, he's unlikely to do more than that so I don't know that we'd benefit from having access to more practice.  This particular kid is my Science Olympiad kid whose team has been to nationals twice - he has a lot of practice at taking tests.  Finally, there are a lot of AP syllabi available online, so I know that I can find one to use as a starting point - I was just wondering if anybody here had a favorite, or if I should look for one that used a particular textbook.  I'll check out Zumdhal and see if there's an AP syllabus that uses it, and I'd love to hear about any other favorites! 

[Dicentra]

My favourite has always been Chang.  His AP text is just called Chemistry.  When I taught AP Chem years ago, I used the 8th edition and my dd used the 10th edition when she did AP Chem 3 years ago.  It's clean (not a lot of extra flashy/distracting stuff) and the explanations and questions are clear and at the appropriate difficulty level.  Here's a free copy of the 10th edition on the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/Chemistry_10th_Edition_Raymond_Chang

Because I taught AP before they started the whole syllabus thing, I don't have a syllabus to share but I'm sure that there are syllabi out there for the Chang textbook - it's very widely used.  Here are two syllabi that came up when I googled "ap chem syllabus using chang":

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-chemistry-sample-syllabus-1-id-1029708v1.pdf

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-chemistry-sample-syllabus-4-id-1029721v1.pdf

 

[Lilaclady]

I like Daijobu’s suggestion. While I do not particularly like the collegeboard, I have to say they have made registering and preparing for the exams way easier. They have a bunch of  practice questions that can be tailored to the topic and you can set it up for your student. Adopting a syllabus does not mean to you have to follow it rigidly. I submitted a syllabus for calculus but mostly used AOPS text even though it wasn’t listed as one of the official texts. You still have a lot of freedom to teach in a manner that suits you.