Originally Posted by Cookie
Here is something I found on the college board AP site

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Answer 4: "I agree that chemistry is an absolutely essential (prerequisite) to the understanding. I have had many students over the years take AP Biology without first having chemistry. I can get them through the class, but the first six weeks are torture to them. I had one student ask why biology students had to know chemistry but chemistry students didn't have to know biology to be successful. The answer, of course, is that chemistry occurs in the absence of life, but life does not occur in the absence of chemistry. Invariably, students who don't have chemistry before they take my course are convinced of its necessity and take it the next year. You cannot take biochemistry out of an advanced biology course."
-- Jo Ann Burman, Andress High School, El Paso, Texas. 5/28/99
This makes sense, but how far do you carry this logic? Chemistry is an application of the laws of physics, and arguably physics should be a pre-requisite for chemistry. But usually chemistry is taken before physics in American high schools, because the mathematical demands of physics are higher. That is probably the same reason biology is usually taken before chemistry. Since biological systems obey physical laws, one could also argue that physics should be a direct pre-requisite for biology.