Kaplan Test Prep - AP Biology Prep Plus 2020 & 2021: 3 Practice Tests + Study Plans + Review + Online (Kaplan Test Prep)

Lead Editor
Brandon Deason, MD

Special thanks to our faculty writers and editors on this edition: Maria Cuffe, Chris Culbertson, Sumir Desai, Elizabeth Minten, Bonnie Wang, Allison Wilkes St. Clair, Valerie Yeung

Special thanks to the following for their contributions to this text: Laura Aitcheson, Matthew Callan, Andrea Carver, Christopher Durland, M. Dominic Eggert, Tim Eich, Tyler Fara, Elizabeth Flagge, Dan Frey, Bella Furth, Adam Grey, Allison Harm, Katy Haynicz-Smith, Duncan Honeycutt, Rebecca Knauer, Jeffrey Koetje, Liz Laub, Terry McMullen, Mark Metz, Jenn Moore, Kristin Murner, Nicholas Nguyen, Aishwarya Pillai, Elijah Schwartz, Jill Sherman, Linda Brooke Stabler, Oscar Velazquez, Shayna Webb-Dray, Lee Weiss, Lauren White, Dan Wittich, Michael Wolff, Jessica Yee, and Nina Zhang.

AP is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.

This publication is designed to provide accurate information in regard to the subject matter covered as of its publication date, with the understanding that knowledge and best practice constantly evolve. The publisher is not engaged in rendering medical, legal, accounting, or other professional service. If medical or legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. This publication is not intended for use in clinical practice or the delivery of medical care. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the Editors assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising out of or related to any use of the material contained in this book.

2020 by Kaplan, Inc.

Published by Kaplan Publishing, a division of Kaplan, Inc.
750 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-5062-4809-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Kaplan Publishing print books are available at special quantity discounts to use for sales promotions, employee premiums, or educational purposes. For more information or to purchase books, please call the Simon & Schuster special sales department at 866-506-1949.

Chapter 1

Congratulationsyou have chosen Kaplan to help you get a top score on your AP Biology exam. Kaplan understands your goals and what youre up against: conquering a tough exam while participating in everything else that high school has to offer.

You expect realistic practice, authoritative advice, and accurate, up-to-the-minute information on the exam. And thats exactly what youll find in this book.

In preparing for the AP exam, you certainly will have built a solid foundation of knowledge about the biological basis of life. While this knowledge is critical to your learning, keep in mind that just being able to recall isolated structures, processes, and facts does not ensure success on the exam. Biology is about big ideas: how evolution drives diversity, how organisms use energy to grow and reproduce, how information processes are vital to life, and how biological systems cooperate and compete within an ecosystem. The College Board (the maker of the AP exam) asks you to apply the knowledge youve learned at a higher level in order to show evidence of college-level abilities.

Thats where this book comes in. This guide offers much more than a review of basic content. Well show you how to put your knowledge to brilliant use on the AP exam through structured practice and efficient review of the areas you need to work on most. Well explain the ins and outs of the exam structure and question formats so you wont experience any surprises. Well even give you test-taking strategies that successful students use to earn high scores.

Are you ready for your adventure in the study and mastery of everything AP Biology? Good luck!

The AP Biology exam is 3 hours and 10 minutes long and is divided into two, 90-minute sections with a 10-minute break in between. Section I has 60 multiple-choice questions with four answer choices each. Section II has 6 free-response questions. The 8 official AP Biology course units tested, along with the frequency of questions on each topic, are as follows:

1. Chemistry of Life (8-11%)
2. Cell Structure and Function (10-13%)
3. Cellular Energetics (12-16%)
4. Cell Communication and Cell Cycle (10-15%)
5. Heredity (8-11%)
6. Gene Expression and Regulation (12-16%)
7. Natural Selection (13-20%)
8. Ecology (10-15%)

Our book has taken these 8 units and organized them into the 5 parts: Foundations of Life, Structures of Life, Processes of Life, Transformations of Life, and Interactions of Life. This approach to scientific discovery is about learning concepts and how they relate, not just facts. The College Board has increased the emphasis on themes and concepts and placed less weight on specific facts in both the AP Biology course and exam. The chapters in this book are intended to take advantage of this design by focusing on specific learning objectives and synthesizing information from different concepts to help you better understand, and learn, the AP Biology course and exam content.

Section II begins with a 10-minute, recommended reading period in which youre given 10 minutes to pore over Section II of the exam, which consists of two long free-response questions and four short free-response questions. You then have 80 minutes to answer all of these questions. The phrase long free-response means roughly the same thing as large, multi-step, and involved. Although the two long free-response questions are worth a significant amount each and are broken into multiple parts, they usually dont cover an obscure topic. Instead, they take a fairly basic biology concept and ask you several questions about it. Sometimes diagrams are required or experiments must be set up properly. Its a lot of biology work, but it is fundamental biology work. The short free-response items are typically illustrative examples or concepts that you are expected to explain or analyze, providing appropriate scientific evidence and reasoning. A typical response for the short free-response items will be about a paragraph or two in length. You have approximately 20 minutes for each of the long free-response questions and 10 minutes for each of the short-response questions.

Once you complete your AP exam, it will be sent to the College Board for grading. Student answer sheets for the multiple-choice section (Section I, Part A) are scored by machine. Scores are based on the number of questions answered correctly. No points are deducted for wrong answers, and no points are awarded for unanswered questions.

The free-response section (Section II) is evaluated and scored by hand by trained AP readers. Rubrics based on each specific free-response prompt are released on the AP central website after the exams are administered.

The score from the multiple-choice section of the exam counts for 50% of your total exam score. The other 50% is the combined score from the two long and four short free-response questions.