<p>I'm thinking about self-studying Art History. However, I'm probably not in the same situation as most other people studying for a test.</p>
<p>Well, I'm on my school's Quiz Bowl team and our coach makes us remember A LOT of different art pieces as well as information about the general art movements. Last week, as I was rummaging through old books that my mom had collected for me, I ran across an AP Art History book (Stockstad's 2nd edition). I'm wondering whether self-studying for the APAH test is a good idea or not, since I already had a vague outline of Art History and knew many of the major works and artists.</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore right now, and if self-studying isn't a bad idea, I'll probably take the test senior year. That should be more than enough time to drill the information into my head. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can go about memorizing all this information? What should I do besides read the textbook?</p>
<p>Our APAH class uses REA’s AP Art History book. Be sure to get a copy of the 2nd edition. The last chapter is a really great fast review of all the key materials.</p>
<p>You are going to need to know a lot more than what you probably do for the exam. Your bank of important art works is probably close to 100 short haha. A really well prepared student going into the exam should have an extensive knowledge of circa 250 works. You need to not only be able to properly identify these images, but place them in historical context (something being very emphasized on the exam as of late), understand the role of patronage in the works, note how they differ from the period previous, and what art techniques is the artist using to convey their message. If you could write an essay off the top of your head discussing female artists like Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun, Artemesia Gentileschi, and Louise Nevelson (who are very important, but not well known and do not come up often outside an Art History classroom) than your knowledge is probably close to sufficient to take the test this year and self study. However if you are finding that you only know the great works from each period, then you will need probably more time or 100% dedication to excel on the exam.</p>
<p>I’m definitely not planning to take the test this year. I’m actually debating on whether or not to start self-studying Art History for my senior year, since some of the main trends and major art pieces that I’ll study in depth will come up in Quiz Bowl.</p>
<p>However, if it’s mostly discrete things that will have no long-lasting impact on my art appreciation, I might not want to put forth the effort to study for the exam, since I’ve heard that it requires quite a bit of memorization.</p>
<p><em>BTW</em> my art knowledge isn’t TOO shabby, since our Quiz Bowl Coach basically teaches out of The Annotated Mona Lisa, which I’ve heard is a pretty decent book.</p>
<p>Learning artworks and their respective artists is NOT studying for the exam… I think it’s hard to get a hold on what exactly the course/exam is about unless you take it or get a review book specifically for it. You need to understand how the artworks relate to the culture and politics of their time period, and how they are take-offs of (or deviations from) earlier artworks.
I really really highly recommend the REA review book: [Amazon.com:</a> AP Art History w/CD-ROM (REA)-The Best Test Prep for (Test Preps): Frank Chmiel, Larry Krieger, Barbara McGowran: Your Store](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/History-CD-ROM-Best-Test-Preps/dp/0738602922]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/History-CD-ROM-Best-Test-Preps/dp/0738602922)</p>
<p>I definitely have to agree with what was said above, just knowing the names of the works and their artists from Quiz Bowl is certainly helpful for the 115 multiple choice questions. However, the FRQs on the exam are going to require a lot of synthesizing of history, period style, culture, etc. Buying a textbook IMHO is critical to this course, and of course REA’s Art History which is the best. I would probably also supplement that with the Annotated Mona Lisa if you already own it.</p>