The AP Biology course is designed to be the equivalent of a two-semester college introductory biology course usually taken by biology majors during their first year. After showing themselves to be qualified on the AP Exam, some students, in their first year of college, are permitted to take upper-level courses in biology or 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 should include those topics regularly covered in a college biology course for majors. The college course in biology differs significantly from the usual first high school course in biology with respect to the kind of textbook used, the range and depth of topics covered, the type of laboratory work done by students, and the time and effort required of students.

The textbooks used for AP Biology should be those used by college biology majors. The kinds of labs done by AP students must be the equivalent of those done by college students. The AP Biology 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 as well. 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 AP Biology Development Committee conducts surveys in which professors at colleges regularly receiving the most AP students respond to a questionnaire asking them to describe the content of their introductory biology courses for biology majors. The AP Course Description that follows was developed by the committee after a thorough analysis of survey results. The AP Biology Exam seeks to be representative of the topics covered by the survey group. Accordingly, goals have been set for percentage coverage of three general areas:

I. Molecules and Cells, 25%

II. Heredity and Evolution, 25%

III. Organisms and Populations, 50%

These three areas have been subdivided into major categories with percentage goals specified for each. The percentage goals should serve as a guide for designing an AP Biology course and may be used to apportion the time devoted to each category. The exam is constructed using the percentage goals as guidelines for question distribution. The two main goals of AP Biology are to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and an appreciation of science as a process. The ongoing knowledge 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 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 following guidelines are offered to help teachers and their students focus on unifying themes and key concepts.

Themes, topics, and concepts all give structure to an AP Biology course. This book defines themes as overarching features of biology that apply throughout the curriculum. Topics are the subject areas in biology, and concepts are the most important ideas that form our current understanding of a particular topic. An example of a topic is “cellular respiration.” In a conceptual approach to this topic, for example, it is important to understand how membranes couple ATP synthesis to the energy released by electron transport. This key concept stands above discrete “facts,” such as the role of a particular cytochrome in electron transport.

Emphasizing concepts over facts makes the content of a biology course more meaningful and less overwhelming. A biology course has more structure and meaning when the key concepts for each topic are placed in the broader context of unifying themes. As an example, the theme of “energy transfer” helps students connect topics as diverse as cellular respiration and ecosystem dynamics. Concepts are the key ideas, restricted in scope to a certain topic. Themes cut across the topics. Increasingly, the AP Biology Exam will emphasize the themes and concepts of biology and place less weight on specific facts.

The next few sections of this book reinforce the relationships of themes and concepts to the topics in an AP Biology course. First is a suggested list of themes. Following this list is a topic outline that organizes biology into subject areas. Then there are explanations of the items in the suggested list of themes with a specific example for each one.

I. Science as a Process

II. Evolution

III. Energy Transfer

IV. Continuity and Change

V. Relationship of Structure to Function

VI. Regulation

VII. Interdependence in Nature

VIII. Science, Technology, and Society