<p>Hello, I am to be a senior next year and I just completed Spanish 3. It was not a good year learning wise. My teacher barely spoke Spanish well herself, and all we did was arbitrary worksheets and powerpoints. We weren't even aloud to speak to each other without the headphone device. I had a great Spanish teacher freshman year but foolishly, I changed schools. Ever since then I have had gringas "teach" us Spanish that spent the majority of the time talking about their lives or keeping us busy with worksheets. The AP Spanish teacher is the same teacher I had this year, and I have heard from the recent seniors that the majority could not handle the AP exam. </p>
<p>Thus I must ask, how would one independently study Spanish to get a 5 on the AP exam and to also actually communicate the language?</p>
<p>I can get a tutor. Sadly, I cannot commit my whole life to the language, but I can commit a good amount of hours per week.</p>
<p>It is a really tough test, in my opinion at least. I had a great teacher who always made us practice for the AP test (sample recordings, essays, and MC’s) and I still found it pretty difficult. If you want to self study, you have to find a good book or website that gives you the opportunity to practice those things on a regular basis. It would require a lot of determination though. Good luck</p>
<p>Sent from my ThunderBolt using Tapatalk 2</p>
<p>If you can, take a class. At the very least, have somebody that’s familiar with academic Spanish that you can go to for assistance. From what you’re saying, it might actually be better in your case to go with the latter option.</p>
<p>Whether you self-study or take the class, make sure you listen to as many different accents as possible. As a non-native, the accents on the exam were what gave me the most trouble; even the natives had trouble understanding a couple of the recordings because of the accents.</p>
<p>You’ll also want to practice reading with authentic material. [This</a> site](<a href=“http://www.elpais.com/global/]This”>EL PAÍS Edición América: el periódico global) is the one that my teacher recommended, and it worked pretty well for me. Just browse through it daily and read some articles that catch your attention. Start getting used to using context to figure out some word meanings; you’re not going to be familiar with every word that’s on the exam.</p>
<p>These are the two main points I would stress, in addition to (of course) practicing with speaking and writing, both formal and informal. It helps to, for instance, have a friend that you only speak Spanish to, or a pen pal that you only write to in Spanish. Basically, immerse yourself as much as possible even if you can’t commit your life to the language. Do that and you should do well on the exam, though I can’t say whether you’ll get a 5 or not since that’s entirely dependent on the person. Good luck!</p>