Back in my freshman year, AP classes seemed ominous. I felt like they were for the best of the best: for the most prestigious of students at ORHS. However, thanks to my brother and friends in higher grades, I realized AP classes are less daunting than I thought. Although they are faster paced and therefore harder, curriculum in an AP class is created specifically for a test in May: only a month before classes usually end. Additionally, they serve as possible college credit, which can save lots of money if you plan to further your education.
However, AP classes aren’t for everyone, and that’s okay. This article isn’t to convince you that you need AP classes: I am just giving you tips and guides for which ones you might want to take so you can be prepared in the future as a metaphorical big brother. Treat AP classes as normal classes: never take a class just because it says AP. Be interested in the class itself.
Another thing to note is that I have not taken every AP class, so some of the descriptions are from students who have taken the class. Also, you can self-teach yourself AP classes not offered in-person and learn on Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS). You can talk to your counselor to learn more about these options.
Without further ado, here is your AP guide by James Li, listed in no particular order.
AP Calculus AB
Typical Teacher: Bill Reeves
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Precalculus
Interested in the STEM field? Calculus is for you. It is one of the bases for engineering, chemistry, physics, and many other STEM subjects.
Difficulties: Calculus introduces many new abstract concepts, but the basis is formed from math you’ve learned in previous classes. It might not feel useful, but it is, trust me.
“[Reeves] is more of a professor’s style of a teacher, because he kinda just does it. He assumes you already know and can jump there in your head.” – Maya Grainger (‘24).
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: Understand the concepts by asking Reeves or watching YouTube videos. There are also optional homework assignments which you can use to further your understanding of calculus, especially if there are specific concepts you are struggling with. Once you understand these, AP Calc and future math classes will be a lot easier.
AP Calculus BC
Typical Teacher: Bill Reeves
Length: Only in 2nd semester
Prerequisites: Taking or have taken AB
Think of the hardest math class you’ve had. Calc BC is probably two times as bad. Unless that made you think about AB, and then it’s about 1 ½ times as bad. It’s also useful in STEM.
Difficulties: Building off Calc AB, the concepts are more abstract, equations more complex, and ideas more complicated. Unfortunately, because of timing constraints, you’re never really shown in class how any of this stuff is used, which I didn’t really like.
“The beginning of [BC] is dumb. The rest of it is okay. It’s just a lot of work, which I guess you can expect but it is what it is.” – Chris Hawley (‘24)
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: Visualize it with further research. The most satisfying part of this class is being able to understand what you are learning.
AP Physics 1
Typical Teacher: Jim Thibault (pronounced Tee-boe)
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Algebra 2/Trigonometry
Ever wondered about kinematics? AP Physics 1 is all about kinematics, or motion, basically. If you want to go further into the physics field, or engineering, this (and AP Physics 2) class is for you.
Difficulties: Physics is very math intensive, so if you don’t like math, it might not be the best science class for you.
“It’s pretty hard. If you’re not really into an additional math conceptual course, I wouldn’t take it. I can’t say I enjoyed it the entire time, but I would say that it was a good experience. I enjoy being able to understand real world scientific concepts and relate to them in my day-to-day.” – Alessandro Garofalo (‘24)
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: What helped me with the test taking was reviewing the homeworks, as many test questions are similar to homework problems. As for the homework problems, they are required but are graded by completion. My best advice for lab reports is submitting them early, so Thibault can give you feedback before you need to turn in a final version.
AP Physics 2
Typical Teacher: Jim Thibault
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: AP Physics 1
Ever wondered about electricity and magnetism? AP Physics 2 is all about electricity, magnetism, fluids, optics, waves, and more.
Difficulties: I find this class harder than Physics 1 because a lot of these things aren’t as easily visualized. For example, I can see a ball falling but I can’t see electricity flowing through a wire, or electrons being attracted to protons. Additionally, the formulas are more difficult, so study hard.
“In AP [Physics] 1 we did forces, and I feel like that’s physics. [In AP Physics 2], we’re doing electricity, and I don’t really know how that’s physics.” – Grainger
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: Because this is also a Thibault class, previous advice about homework and labs still stands.
AP Microeconomics/Macroeconomics
Typical Teacher: Adam Lacasse
Length: Full year, but Micro is 1st semester and Macro is 2nd semester.
Prerequisites: None
Micro is the study of small-scale economics like businesses and Macro is the study of large-scale economics like government trade. Although math is involved in this class, it mostly relies on economic concepts which you need to understand. This class is a good introduction to economics, so take this if you’re interested in that.
Difficulties: There are a lot of concepts, so when I took the class, we omitted one unit from both Micro and Macro. If you’re taking the AP test for this class, you will have to do some outside practice as well.
Mods are the main homework in this class, which are 10-question multiple choice quizzes about the topic you learned that day in class. Usually, all Mods are repeatable and also due before a test (which does not happen frequently).
“Econ was a very mellow class. We didn’t do a lot of work, we could retake a test… as a class, I never had to worry about it. Overall, I thought it was a pretty easy class,” said Jacob Failla (‘24).
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: Never hold these mods off until the day they’re due. Nobody wants to pull their hair out looking for past class material they’re barely familiar with, spending hours doing Mods, so you don’t get an F (I know you will probably still do this, just don’t say I didn’t warn you).
AP Spanish
Typical Teacher: Tom Hausmann
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Spanish 4
If you are able to take this class, consider yourself lucky that more than eight people in your school like Spanish. The main focus of AP Spanish is culture, as Hausmann will require you throughout the year to study a Spanish speaking country (the theme of culture comes up a lot during the AP test).
Apart from that, there are three types of classes in AP Spanish. Reading days, cultural comparison days, and mock test days. The classes are straightforward, and the only outside homework is electronic questions and outside reading. If you’ve taken every other Spanish class, this is a good option to continue speaking Spanish in high school and also like learning about different cultures.
Difficulties: The AP already expects you to be pretty good at Spanish and doesn’t really teach you much vocab and grammar wise.
“In the actual class, you’re more preparing for the actual test. I recommend it for people that are already good at Spanish. If you’re coasting like your first few years of Spanish, I think it will be hard for you to be successful in class.” – Ben Limric
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: If you plan on taking this class, or any AP World Language, you should do a lot of outside practice to get used to reading, speaking, and listening. Stay on top of homeworks, and you should be golden.
AP Statistics
Typical Teacher: Peter Harwood
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Grade of C or better in Precalculus, or Algebra II and Trigonometry or Grade of B- or better in both Trigonometry and Finite Mathematics.
I don’t like Stats. You might be wondering, “James Li, I thought you loved math you nerd,” and you would be right, I do like math. However, the vision of stats which I created in my head was that it was a pure math class.
Difficulties: There are a lot of definitions and procedures you have to remember. As much as Harwood will remind you about them, you have to do outside studying to really hammer in those points.
“You do want to try in stats. Stats can be easy and hard at times. Stats is a class everyone should take.” – Failla
James Li’s Tips and Tricks: Some things to note are that the textbook is very helpful. Usually in class, we don’t go over a lot of the definitions, because there are just so many. Take the time to read about the chapter ahead of time and you should be cookin’.
AP United States History
Typical Teacher: Karen VanDyke
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: U.S. History
There are 400 years of history relating to the creation and development of the United States. And in APUSH (abbr. for AP US History), you learn all 400 of it. However, it’s not like some game show where you must know every fact, VanDyke explained.
“None of the questions are asking you to come up with a fact. It’s the application of an understanding of history. Even the multiple-choice questions are about how an action impacted, cause and effect, or long-range planning. It’s a critical thinking class, more than any type of memorization.”
This doesn’t mean you should not learn the facts, however. You’re issued a book that is expected to be read for class, and Van Dyke will also do lectures about the chapters you’ve read in class as well.
If you’re a fan of history or not a fan of STEM subjects, or you just want to improve your ability to read and analyze texts, take APUSH. In fact, everyone should take this class, says Van Dyke. “I end up seeing such growth from every student that takes [APUSH]. It might not be growth in the point where they’re going to get a five on the AP exam, but everybody that comes in grows such large leaps and bounds that I’m really proud of.”
Differences and Difficulties:
Multiple choice: Although other exams also have multiple choice, the ones presented in APUSH are different. “[Multiple Choice questions] can trick you a lot, because there can be multiple right answers to a question,” says Hayden Spires (‘24). “You just have to pick the rightest answers.”
Short Answer Questions: Gives you a question and expects a short answer.
Document Based Questions (DBQ): In this section, you expected to argue a common point based on seven documents, which all don’t have to agree with each other. To get full credit, you can either use all seven documents in your argument or use at least five but contain a summary demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about. Many students find this difficult.
Long Essay Questions (LEQs): Using your knowledge of U.S. History, write an essay answering a prompt.
Tips and Tricks: “Number one: Utilize the textbook,” says Spires. “VanDyke goes over the chapters, but she leaves a lot of stuff out in her lectures. I think it’s on purpose because we need to take a lot of responsibility.”
Additionally, Spires says to use outside resources. “There’s a bunch of good YouTube videos and YouTubers and teachers who are talking about the different units in the textbook. I really wish I did that when I was in the class.”
AP Biology
Typical Teacher: Nate Oxnard
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Two science courses
AP Biology isn’t your typical AP class. Taught by Nathan Oxnard, this class extends on what you learned in 9th grade biology, if you even remember that. However, what’s special about this class is how Oxnard doesn’t want to spend a whole class on a lecture, but on something more applicable to the AP test and the real world. “[Oxnard] didn’t really teach many lessons, and if he did teach a lesson, it would be like 10 to 15 minutes. Usually, there would either be a lab or activity, or review day before a test. There weren’t many ‘sit and take notes;’ I don’t think we took any notes during class,” says Alja Forcey-Rodriguez (‘24).
If you are very interested in science, or like or want to improve your self-learning ability, Forcey-Rodriguez says this class is for you.
Difficulties: Because not a lot of lectures are done in-class, you will have to self-study with a textbook. Forcey-Rodriguez says that it’s important to study, as it translates to how you perform in the class. “The unit tests would really hit us hard. Some people did extremely well, but most people did pretty poorly.”
Tips and Tricks: Read the textbook. “A lot of [material] is based on the textbook. You have to read the textbook a lot, and people wouldn’t do that because they’re not really used to self-learning,” said Forcey-Rodriguez.
AP Chemistry
Typical Teacher: Jennifer Wainwright
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: Chemistry and Algebra 2
Chemistry: The bane of sophomores. You might be glad to hear that there is not much workload outside of class, which is reading the textbook(s) and taking notes. Then why does Olaf Woodall (‘24) think this is the hardest AP at ORHS?
Difficulties: “If you’re not good at memorizing stuff, do not do AP Chem. It is a lot of content and a lot of knowing the content,” says Woodall. In fact, there are two books for AP Chemistry which you use throughout the year and when Woodall took the class, they even had to omit one unit because of the overwhelming content.
Additionally, it doesn’t present itself as a difficult class. “Some people mistake AP Chem for being an easy class at the start of the year because there’s really no homework, and then you get a test. One time, I thought there wasn’t much workload for [AP Chem] and I fell behind – didn’t do well on the test,” continued Woodall. He also mentions that there are a lot of math concepts you have to use as well.
I then asked Woodall about the other aspects of the class. “You do labs once in a while. Some of them are good, some of them are pretty boring. You can’t expect too much fun stuff to happen,” he said.
Also, he said titration is hard. I don’t know what that is.
Advice from Woodall: Woodall reinforces the idea of having good chemistry with your peers. “I had a really good group last year; I think everyone liked each other. We had a fun time. But if you have a bad group, I can imagine it being probably the worst class.”
Additional advice:
“Do not slack off in AP Chem.
Don’t do what I did: I didn’t take a single page of notes all year for the class.
Don’t play chess on your computer, pay attention during class.
Enjoy electrochem. If you don’t enjoy electrochem you’re just bad at chemistry.
Do not underestimate the class,” he said.
AP Precalculus
Typical Teacher: Lisa Hallbach
Length: Full year
Prerequisites: C- or better in Algebra 2 with Trigonometry, B- or better in Algebra 2, and a grade of B- or better in both Trigonometry and Finite Mathematics
In the near future, AP Precalculus will be the only Precalculus class offered at ORHS. Although this sounds bad on paper, it’s because AP Precalc and Precalc are the same class. The curriculum is the same and the speed of the class is the same. Lisa Hallbach, the current AP Precalc teacher, noticed this while teaching a class where half were taking AP, and half regular.
“They’re taking the same test. They’re doing the same material. It just didn’t make sense to have two courses that were just the same thing, where one crew is taking a test and another is not,” she said.
Differences to Precalc: Other than a test you have to take in May, AP Precalc has a greater focus on graphing using calculators, which is a good skill to have for the future.
James Li’s Advice: Don’t get too alarmed when you only see this on the class selection list for precalc: it’s the same class. If you don’t want to take the AP test, then don’t. Do what feels right for you.
Those are the AP classes offered at ORHS. I hope I’ve inspired you to challenge yourself and take an AP course, and if I haven’t, that’s fine. Just remember, the College Board will always find a way to take your money.
– James Li
Mouth of the River 
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