Chemistry/Physics

[murali0298]

I want to get really high Science scores but I will only be taking the pre AP Chem/Phys next year.
Can anyone tell me where the focus is on in the science uil tests in both chem/phys?
Is it enough to just go through the pre AP books for both or is it more worthwile to go on reading a little bit of AP chem / phys in the summer?

[nsguy1350]

You already took AP Bio. Make sure you remember as much as you can of that. Make sure you know your big picture concepts, with a bit of detail as well, if you want to do well there. I'd suggest taking many past tests.

For Chemistry and Physics, I'd say you can get maybe from 40-60 points throughout the year in both, approximately, if you only study the Pre-AP stuff (maybe a bit higher in Physics, since you have the book questions.) For Chemistry and Physics, I would suggest reading over AP topics and being able to know some formulas ahead of when you learn them in class. However, there isn't really a trick to getting really high Science scores immediately; you're going to need to study diligently in order to do that.

[darksaber21]

Pre-AP Chemistry will take care of about a third, if not half, of the questions of the Chemistry section. Reason being that they put questions about stoichiometry, determining chemical nomenclature, or even about neutrons, protons and neutrons. (I remember a question asking what a group or period is....). There are some tricks to it, like realizing what the number of protons/electrons in an ion is and knowing the difference. The rest of the Chemistry section is basically learned from AP, with a potential one or maybe even two questions that could be outside of the AP textbooks, but can be answered with "common sense" nonetheless.

The physics section, however, is basically AP physics, with only like three to five questions from pre-AP, typically dealing with 1-D/2-D kinematics and forces. They tend to put at least one light/lenses/mirror type question in each test, and at least one or two question(s) dealing with electricity. The best advise I could give is to really read textbooks from the recommended list and make sure you understand the material, and the math behind it.

Also, make sure you get next year's book for the physics section, since questions, 41, 42, 43, and 44, and maybe 45 and/or 46, tend to be from that book.

[murali0298]

[darksaber21]

What they did this year is that for each competition, certain chapters from the book would be tested on the test. Like chapters 1 & 2 for Invitational A, 3 & 4 for Invitational B and so on. Now, you don't have to read the book, since it is basically theories, but it is well recommended.

I don't know when the next book will be updated, if they are doing the same thing next year.