I had a choice between AP European History and AP World History for my sophomore year next year, and I chose AP European. I’ve heard it’s extremely tough, but can someone please explain to me why AP European has the bad rep of being a hard class.
I’m not sure that it does. It might at harder your school because of the teacher. I will tell you that I believe that whichever AP History course your take first (USH/WH/EH) will be the hardest, because for most students it’s their first time working with and writing papers based upon primary sources. Once you get through the first, any subsequent AP history course is a relative breeze.
@skieurope My first AP course I took last year as a freshman was AP Human Geography (counts as social studies ap course, but still ap course). It was extremely easy, but I feel like AP European will be a little tougher because of a different teacher and writing papers.
@ryanalexander116 I specifically listed the 3 history courses and did not include other social studies courses. There is no comparison between APHG and APUSH/EH/WH. Any of the latter three will me much harder than APHG.
There is a frick ton of reading and writing involved. You’ll read and reread your textbooks, notes, primary sources, online sources, etc. You’ll take a lot of notes, maybe write essays, and have to do a lot of critical thinking. As with all APs, there’s also a lot of content. It’s manageable though, so I wouldn’t worry too much. I second that it does get easier, though, once you learn how to think about history. APUSH is a notoriously difficult class at my school and it’s aquired kind of a bad rep, but I thought it was significantly easier than Euro.