EXAM PREPARATION

  1. TAKE THE NOTES! I know the Collegeboard videos are not the most interesting thing and a lot of them cover topics you may already know from class, but just taking simple notes may come in handy when you need to review towards the end of the tri. Also taking notes is very helpful for remembering overall concepts which means LESS REVIEW NEEDED LATER!
  2. TRY ON THE QUIZZES AND PRACTICE TESTS! They are great practice, and searching up the answers is definitely not the way to go.
  3. QUIZ AND TEST CORRECTIONS! They are a great way from you to learn the information if you didn’t learn it from the video.

  4. BUT MOST HELPFUL (FOR ME)…Khan Academy Videos! I found that these videos were super helpful when I needed to review something really fast, but didn’t want to go to collegeboard. I really thought the videos/assignments on the internet were very effective for me. I think its a great resource to use just to review the topics that you are super confused or just want more clarification about.

    • They’re videos are super quick and straight to the point, which was good for relearning topics I already knew but needed a refresh on. For example, bits and binary was something that I couldn’t remember from the beginning of the year, and the videos helped me remember the basics.
    • They have assignments/articles for each topic that basically restate the information in the videos but more visually. The unit that covered data security and encryption is a good example of combining the videos and articles, and they definitely helped me understand public and private keys more.
    • Their practices are also pretty quick and straightforward if you are looking for extra resources other than the quizzes and practice tests. I used the practice tests about the internet because that was something I was not understanding just from Collegeboard practice.

THE EXAM

  1. PAY ATTENTION TO THE QUESTIONS ON THE PRACTICE TESTS! The questions are very similar to what is on the exam. If you know them from the practice exam then you can save up on time from checking your work after you finish.
  2. STARTING TIMING YOUR PRACTICE TESTS! The ones we were given in class were 50 questions. Once you get the hang of the first couple of practice tests, start giving yourself around a hour or an hour and a half to finish all 50 questions. This is gonna help you with pacing and with working under the pressure.
  3. TAKE YOUR TIME! The test is 2 hours for 70 MC. You have time to double and even triple check your answers if you work at a good pace. With that being said don’t stress about not having enough time because you definitely do.

CREATE TASK TIPS

  1. READ OVER THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY! Make sure that you are including each specific element in your project. It might be helpful to make a checklist with everything and check each item off as you are completing it with your project. I found myself having to review the guidelines a lot because there would be little things that I was forgetting, but doing so definitely made my project stronger.
  2. REVIEW THE PAST EXAMPLES FROM COLLEGEBOARD! Seeing what ideas got lower scores guided me and I knew what to avoid including in my own project. Additionally, the good examples gave me some ideas of how other people included the required lists, iteration, and other items in a creative way. Though these examples might inspire you, make sure that you are coming up with your own idea and not directly copying.
    • I looked at example A and B because those examples got all the points rewarded, so I looked at those for what to include and how much to write for my response.
    • I looked specifically at examples I and H because they both lost a bunch of points, so I made sure not look at what they did wrong and fix those error in my response.
  3. CITE YOUR SOURCES! If you use code from somewhere else, dont forget to make notes throughout giving credit to the original creator. Even something as small as a loop needs to be cited if its from somewhere else. But definitely try to code everything yourself because it’s good practice and you learn a lot through actually working through the bugs in your project.
  4. DON’T MAKE A BASIC GAME! This one is more subjective, but a lot of people were telling me that if you make something basic/generic like hangman or tic tac toe you are not going to get a good score. I think just try to be as creative as possible and make sure that your project has a geniune purpose because that’s an important part of the create task. Also please don’t do a GPA Calculator, its so overdone :)
  5. REVIEW THE SCORING GUIDELINES! Don’t just assume you are meeting each requirement, check the guidelines. They let you know exactly what they are looking for, so its another great way to double check your work.
  6. CODE IT ALL AT ONCE THEN REVIEW EACH SECTION! This is also more subjective, but I found it super helpful to code a basic idea of what my create task would look like and all the functionality in one sitting. Then as the deadline approached, I spent a day working through each sections, adding new functionality that reflected the requirements, and refining the code I already created to be more effcient. This was more helpful for me because I had way more time to refine the code and make it way better than that initial draft.
  7. ADD COMMENTS TO THE CODE AS YOU GO! This is something that I wish I did because I ended up forgetting until the last days before the submission. It was not fun having to organize my code and add comments to each line right before the deadline. Adding comments to each section after you write the code is definitely ideal because you can remember exactly what the purpose is.
  8. SPEND A DAY REARRANGING THE CODE! This was important for me because the order that my code was in only made sense to me. But obviously I’m not the one grading, so I spent time going through and arranging my code in a way that I thought would make sense to a random person going through it line by line.

INITIAL ROUGH DRAFT

FINAL DRAFT

LINK TO VIDEO RUNTIME

Hacks

  • Students should create a Sprint Backlog. Here are some focus…
  • Educational zone(s), how to prepare for AP Classroom (MCQ)
  • Interest/Fun zone, unique idea(s) for create task
  • Blogging and Review zone(s), showing what you did and how