To any biologists who know a lot about the AP Biology exam...?

Question

If someone had an excellent grasp on the overwhelming majority of the material in an AP Biology class, how prepared would they be for a biological career? Also, how adept would they be at thinking in biological terms of natural selection and other theories?

My teacher says that the class covers more material than a simple introductory biology class, but I am not certain this assessment is accurate.

So, for those of you biologists out there who are familiar with the exam, is it really that useful an indicator of one's understanding of biology, or is it simply an indicator of one's understanding of lower level biology?

Answer 1

Let's put it this way: If you perform really well on the AP biology test, many colleges will consider your knowledge equivalent to a certain number of courses. To my knowledge, there is no score so high on that test that a reputable school will place you out of more than a year of 100-level biology.

So your teacher is right to a degree. It is possible that an AP biology class is roughly equivalent to a year of college-level biology. It is not likely that it is equivalent to much more than that... so that leaves you still at least three years short before you might generally be considered knowledgeable enough to work in the field at much more than menial tasks.

People I know who have scored well on such a test usually have a grasp of biology that FAR exceeds that of an average person, to be sure. But I don't think that's really saying too much. An average person really doesn't know too much about biology.

Answer 2

No, it is in no way a good indicator of one's understanding of biology. This exam would leave you woefully unprepared for any career in biology as you would have only a very basic idea about anything in biology. On the other hand, it is a good indicator of how well you can remember the exam material. AP Biology and all lower-division (100-level) college biology courses are introductory in nature and as such simplify everything. There is no such thing as lower level biology, lucky for us biologists it only takes a fundamental understanding of the basic prinicples of biology (genetics, cell biology, biochemistry) and some basic physics (physical chemistry) to be well prepared. You get this throughout college and mostly in graduate school. Even then, the hardest thing to learn and they never really teach this is to never believe everything you read in textbooks. Most of the time they are pretty far away from what is actually going on or just plain wrong.

Answer 3

the biology AP class with teach you exactly what you need to know for the exam. They should give you practice essay questions and practice multiple choice exams. It makes taking the exam a lot easier. However, the material is more advanced than in a regular biology class. I didn't take AP bio when I was in high school, I took AP chem and AP environmental science though. On that note though, I am a bio major in school. I think if you enjoyed taking AP bio you should go forward in taking more advanced upper level sciences in college to really see if you like it. Also what I did was got a job in a mircobiology lab to test and see if I really enjoyed the real life aspects of biology instead of just the book aspects.