AP Biology Study Guide

We made this AP exam prep resource precisely for students who WANT:

  • Knowledge of what is on the AP Biology exam
  • Access to lesson notes
  • AP Unit review videos
  • Concept review videos
  • AP exam multiple choice practice problems with answers
  • Access to REAL COLLEGE BOARD EXAMS released from the test room
  • A 12-week plan for studying for the AP Biology exam

If you are a parent reading this, PLEASE DO YOUR STUDENT A HUGE FAVOR! Send them this AP Biology exam prep resource ASAP.

If you are a student reading this, we assume you are taking the AP Biology exam, and we want to help you prepare for your upcoming exam.

We made this AP exam prep resource precisely for students who WANT:

  • Knowledge of what is on the AP Biology exam
  • Access to lesson notes
  • AP Unit review videos
  • Concept review videos
  • AP exam multiple choice practice problems with answers
  • Access to REAL COLLEGE BOARD EXAMS released from the test room
  • A 12-week plan for studying for the AP Biology exam

This resource guide was made with the intention of organizing the BEST FREE RESOURCES the internet has to offer IN ONE PLACE for you. To avoid any sort of copyright infringement, we’re listing links to the pages where you can find all of these helpful resources and providing instructions on how to utilize these resources rather than including copies of them here.

We’ve spent countless hours searching for quality AP exam prep materials over the last decade, so you don’t have to! If you would like to find more exam prep resources like this one for a different AP exam, head over to www.simplifiedu.com/ap-exam-study-guides

If you need better explanations of the concepts being tested or help from someone who has passed this exam

Give us a call at 310-584-7077 or email info@simplifiedu.com, and we’ll match you with an AP Biology tutor who can help you on your way to earning a 3, 4, or 5 on the exam.

Now that we’ve explained what help this resource is supposed to provide you with and how we plan to do that let’s dive in!

All your resources are on the pages that follow ⇩⬇⬇⇩

Exam Structure and Weighting

Understanding the structure of the test, what’s covered, and how much each section is worth is essential to passing this exam and deciding how to spend your time prepping for this exam.

Here’s a link to a downloadable poster with all this information:

AP Biology Exam Structure And Weighting Poster

If you want to know more about each unit covered on the exam and the percentage of questions on the test that utilize the concepts covered in a unit, click the link below. Be sure to scroll down to the course contents section and click “expand all” to see all the unit details.

Here’s a link to the units covered on the test:

AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Access AP Daily Videos

If you haven’t taken the time to check out the AP Daily videos that College Board provides to students when they enroll in their AP classes or sign up for the AP exam, then you are missing out on a huge resource.

AP Daily videos are great for learning the concepts covered on the test. They are best used as a review resource to cover anything you need further explanation on from week to week when you are learning concepts covered on the test or learning a concept your teacher at school never bothered to cover in class.

If you already feel pretty confident that you are at least familiar with every unit covered by the exam, you’re better off just watching the college board’s AP unit review videos posted to Youtube (see the next section for a link to unit review resources).

Here’s a link to instructions on how to watch AP Daily Videos:

Get access To College Board AP Daily videos

Access AP Review Sessions

The College Board has hired university professors and outstanding high school teachers to record unit review videos that will help you review weeks’ worth of exam concepts in a single sitting.

Unfortunately, whoever manages the College Board’s Youtube content could not be bothered to put the unit review videos in sequential order from the first unit to the last. So, you’ll want to keep that in mind and start reviewing earlier units first if you want to review the content in order.

Here is a link for students in the final stretch of their AP Exam review who want to watch College Board unit review videos with AP Teachers and Professors (you will need to navigate to the AP Biology review session playlist, but the content is very well organized, so it should be easy to find):

College Board Unit Review Videos

AP Exam Concept Notes

This resource calls itself a study guide, but really it’s just a set of written notes for reviewing every concept covered on the exam.

Here’s a link to downloadable AP Biology concept notes:

AP Biology Concept Notes

AP Exam Multiple Choice Quizzes With Answers

I highly recommend using the resource below for taking bite-size practice quizzes that will test your knowledge of concepts covered on the exam and provide you question specific explanations of how to find the correct answers to the questions provided.

The user interface for this resource is not slick or pretty, but it gets the job done. To avoid getting lost searching for any downloads available on this page, click the download you want and look for the heading that says “Link” or “Download,” and then follow the link provided. We would just stick to using the practice quizzes since the quality of the downloadable content is hit-or-miss on this site.

Here’s the link to short multiple choice practice quizzes:

AP Biology Multiple Choice Quizzes

REAL AP Exam Multiple Choice Questions With Answers

The first link below will take you to a practice exam written by the College Board with 100 multiple-choice questions written to the content specifications of the AP Biology exam. The multiple choice questions begin on page 6. If you choose to also complete the free-response questions found in this link, it is important to know that they are laid out in a way that you are going to want to answer them on a separate sheet of paper and then check your answers at the back of the pdf later since there’s not much room to write your answers on the test if you were going to print these questions. When navigating the second link, the multiple choice questions can be found starting on page 2. The multiple choice questions are found starting on page 1 for the third link.

Real Multiple Choice Questions For Everyday Practice

1986 AP Biology Exam with Real Multiple Choice Questions

1990 AP Biology Exam with Real Multiple Choice Questions

REAL AP Exam Free Response Questions With Answers

The link below will take you to the College Board’s Free Response Questions test bank from past tests with answers and scoring guidelines to show you how student answers are scored.

Real Free Response Questions And Answers

REAL College Board AP Biology Exams

The best way to prepare for taking the AP Biology exam is to practice answering questions on the actual exam. That’s why you should plan to use past exams released by the College Board as a part of your exam prep process.

There are only a few REAL full-length college board exams with answers and scoring keys released from the test room available to the public, so please be sure to use these tests when you feel ready to test your knowledge of the concepts being tested on the exam.

DO NOT WASTE THE FULL-LENGTH PRACTICE TESTS!

Plan to take at least one of the full-length practice tests timed in one sitting so that you know where you are with your ability to pass this exam.

1999, AP Biology Exam

2002, AP Biology Exam

2013, AP Biology Exam

Recommended 12-Week Study Plan

Week 1
Focus:
Review Unit 1
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Try taking a multiple choice section from a past exam: Real Multiple Choice Questions For Everyday Practice

Week 2
Focus:
Review Unit 2
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Try taking a free response section from a past exam: Real Free Response Questions And Answers

Week 3
Focus:
Review Unit 3
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Take practice quizzes as you have time throughout the week: AP Biology Multiple Choice Quizzes

Week 4
Focus:
Review Unit 4
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Take an untimed full-length practice exam: 1999, AP Biology Exam

Week 5
Focus:
Review Unit 5
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Review concept notes on questions you missed from your practice exam:

AP Biology Concept Notes

Week 6
Focus:
Review Unit 6
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Take practice quizzes as you have time throughout the week: AP Biology Multiple Choice Quizzes

Week 7
Focus:
Review Unit 7
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Try taking half of a multiple choice section from a past exam: 1986 AP Biology Exam with Real Multiple Choice Questions

Week 8
Focus:
Review Unit 8
Resources :

If you need to know what is covered in this unit, use this resource: AP Biology Exam Unit Breakdowns

Watch AP Unit reviews: College Board Unit Review Videos

Take a timed full-length practice exam:

2002, AP Biology Exam

Week 9
Focus:
Work On Your Free Response Game
Resources :

Watch AP Daily videos to review concepts from the questions you missed on your practice exam: Get access To College Board AP Daily videos  

Take 1-2 free response free sections from a past exam: Real Free Response Questions And Answers

Week 10
Focus:
Work On Your Multiple Choice Game
Resources :

Review concept notes on questions you missed from your practice exam:

AP Biology Concept Notes

Take half of a multiple choice section from a past exam: 1990 AP Biology Exam with Real Multiple Choice Questions

Week 11
Focus:
Work on test taking speed
Resources :

Take half of a multiple choice section from a past exam under timed conditions: 1990 AP Biology Exam with Real Multiple Choice Questions

On a different day take one free response section from a past exam: Real Free Response Questions And Answers

Week 12
Focus:
Get ready for the test date!
Resources :

Take a timed full-length practice exam:

2013, AP Biology Exam

Take practice quizzes throughout the week to test random bits of knowledge you need to do well: AP Biology Multiple Choice Quizzes

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