AP Chemistry

AP Chemistry is a full year, double-period Advanced Placement course that teaches preparatory chemistry for college. This course is the continuation of the Regents Chemistry course. It is considerably more difficult than the Regents Chemistry course, due to the fact that students do not have such a detailed reference table to get answers from. Key topics include stoichiometry, matter, atomic structure, bonding, solution chemistry, kinetics, equilibrium, acids and bases, and redox and electrochemistry. Since the class is based on math, the student should have basic algebra skills.

Although the class is a double period class, every other day, students get the second period free. This counts as a science free. This class is taught by Dr. Steven O'Malley and Ms. Jee Paik.

Curriculum
The curriculum follows the order of subjects in the textbook, Chemistry, by Zumdahl and Zumdahl. The first term begins with basic concepts such as measurement and significant figures. The next topic is matter, which includes properties of matter, discussion of elements, and states of matter. These topics take up the first few weeks of the semester. The next few topics discussed deal with stoichiometry, acid-base reactions, and bonding. These topics are fairly large, and take up most of the semester. The semester ends with the topics of gases and solutions.

Labs
There are about 8 labs per term in this class. Most of them are based on Regents labs with additional material from the AP course, such as the calorimeter lab. A few labs are brand new to the student, such as the spectrophotometer lab. Labs are held in room 903.

Lab reports are typed up and handed into the teacher on a specified due date. Lab work is done during class time once ever 2-3 weeks, during which data is collected. The typed up reports include the aim, data, results, error, and conclusion. They are graded out of 10, like the Regents labs are.

AP exam
The AP exam has changed in the past few years. The new exam is broken down into the following: The multiple choice questions are broken down into the following:
 * Section I (90 minutes, no calculator)
 * 75 multiple &mdash; 50%
 * Section II
 * Part A (55 minutes, calculator)
 * Equilibrium problem &mdash; 10%
 * Other problem &mdash; 10%
 * Other problem &mdash; 10%
 * Part B (40 minutes, no calculator)
 * Reactions question &mdash; 5%
 * Essay question &mdash; 7.5%
 * Essay question &mdash; 7.5%
 * Structure of matter &mdash; 20%
 * States of matter &mdash; 20%
 * Reactions &mdash; 35-40%
 * Descriptive chemistry &mdash; 10-15%
 * Laboratory &mdash; 5-15%