Advanced Placement Biology (AP Biology) Program
AP biology courses designed to be the equivalent of a college introductory biology course usually taken by biology majors during their first year. Some AP biology students, as college freshmen, are permitted to undertake upper-level courses in biology or to register for courses for which biology is a prerequisite. Other students may have fulfilled a basic requirement for a laboratory science course and will be able to undertake other courses to pursue their majors. AP biology essays should include the topics regularly covered in a college biology course for majors. The textbooks used for AP Biology essay should be those used by college biology majors and the labs done by AP students must be the equivalent of those done by college students. The AP biology essay course is designed to be taken by students after the successful completion of a first course in high school biology and one in high school chemistry. It aims to provide students with the conceptual framework, factual knowledge, and analytical skills necessary to deal critically with the rapidly changing science of biology.
The two main goals of AP Biology essay are to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and to help students gain an appreciation of science as a process. The ongoing information explosion in biology makes these goals even more challenging. Primary emphasis in an AP Biology course should be on developing an understanding of concepts rather than on memorizing terms and technical details. Essential to this conceptual understanding are the following: a grasp of science as a process rather than as an accumulation of facts; personal experience in scientific inquiry; recognition of unifying themes that integrate the major topics of biology; and application of biological knowledge and critical thinking to environmental and social concerns.
The AP biology essay Development Committee conducts college curriculum surveys of introductory biology courses for biology majors and develops the AP Biology Essay Examination so that it is representative of the topics covered by the survey group. Accordingly, goals have been set for percentage coverage of three general areas:
* Molecules and Cells, 25%
* Heredity and Evolution, 25%
* Organisms and Populations, 50%
These areas have been further subdivided into major categories with the % goals for each major program specified. The percentage goals then serve as a guide for designing an AP Biology Essay course and may be used to apportion the time devoted to each category. The examination is constructed using the percentage goals as guidelines for question distribution.
The two main goals of AP Biology essay are to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and to help students gain an appreciation of science as a process. The ongoing information explosion in biology makes these goals even more challenging. Primary emphasis in an AP Biology course should be on developing an understanding of concepts rather than on memorizing terms and technical details. Essential to this conceptual understanding are the following: a grasp of science as a process rather than as an accumulation of facts; personal experience in scientific inquiry; recognition of unifying themes that integrate the major topics of biology; and application of biological knowledge and critical thinking to environmental and social concerns.
The AP biology essay Development Committee conducts college curriculum surveys of introductory biology courses for biology majors and develops the AP Biology Essay Examination so that it is representative of the topics covered by the survey group. Accordingly, goals have been set for percentage coverage of three general areas:
* Molecules and Cells, 25%
* Heredity and Evolution, 25%
* Organisms and Populations, 50%
These areas have been further subdivided into major categories with the % goals for each major program specified. The percentage goals then serve as a guide for designing an AP Biology Essay course and may be used to apportion the time devoted to each category. The examination is constructed using the percentage goals as guidelines for question distribution.
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