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=AP Biology Three-Level Reading Guide Database=

Welcome! This collection of questions is maintained by the members of the College Board AP Biology listserv, and is designed to be a collaborative resource for advanced biology teachers. Many of us assign readings from college-level textbooks, only to find that our students are not entirely sure how to effectively extract information from densely-written prose. The standard "questions at the end of the chapter" have their uses, but many of them can be answered by simply skimming the text for a few key phrases. In order to help students learn how to read deeply, we are using a technique called a "three-level reading guide."

What are the three levels?
Level 1 questions are fairly straightforward questions that can be answered straight from the text.
 * "What are the most common elements in a human cell?"

A level 2 question asks students to "read between the lines." They should not be able to simply copy a line out of the chapter in order to answer the question, but they should be able to use the information they read to come up with a clear and pretty unambiguous answer.
 * "Compare magnesium + chlorine (two elements with a big difference in electronegativity) with carbon + nitrogen (two elements with a somewhat smaller different in electronegativity between them). Which pair is most likely to form an ionic bond? Why? What type of bond is the other pair most likely to form?"

Level 3 questions ask students to "read beyond the lines." These questions should be fairly high on Bloom's taxonomy and should be quite challenging for the students. (Level 3 questions can also be opinion questions.)
 * "Why is a molecule of H 2 O much more likely to participate in chemical reactions than a molecule of CO 2 ?"

How do I use a three-level reading guide?
However you would like! A few hints. ..
 * All students should easily be able to answer the level 1 questions after completing the reading.
 * Beware of perfectly identical answers on level 2 questions. Students should come up the same basic answer to the question, but identical wording probably means some copying went on before class.
 * Students should be expected to put __something__ down for each level 3 question, but even strong students may struggle with coming up with a complete answer for some level 3 questions. These make great classroom discussion questions!
 * If you don't want to grade every reading guide for every student (i.e. you'd like to have a life), try asking them to write down and turn in their answers to just a few selected questions. Level 1 questions probably should be graded for accuracy, and level 3 questions really shouldn't be.
 * Because this database is accessible to anyone on the web, there will be no posted answers to any of the questions in order to cut down on student cheating. If you would like to create your own answer sheets and distribute them, that's your time-saving prerogative. In that case, however, may we suggest 1) only posting digital copies of the answers on a password-protected site so that students from other schools cannot access them by random Googling, and 2) returning to the database next year and swapping out some of the questions for new ones? Students are less likely to keep and distribute old answer sheets if you have a reputation for NOT reusing material year after year.

How do I use this database?
On the side of this page are links for the most common textbooks used in AP Biology classes, as well as a page for additional/supplemental readings. Once you've found your textbook, simply cut-and-paste the questions you like into your word processing software of choice. (Check out the suggested in order to give your students some guidance on how to approach each level.) Some questions have images associated with them; you should be able to right-click on the image to copy and paste it into your own document.

If you find a question you like, but you aren't quite sure you know the right answer, ask! (Don't be embarrassed - it happens to all of us.) If you are a member of the AP Biology listserv, the hive mind should be able to come up with a satisfactory explanation. If you're not a member, come join us! The [|AP Central homepage for Biology] has information on how to join the listserv.

If you'd like to contribute your own questions to the database (please do!), click the "Join This Wiki" link at the top left of the page to request editing access from one of the moderators.