<p>Hi. I'll be taking AP World next year, and based of of this year's score distributions, getting a good score seems to be getting more difficult. Can you all give me some tips on how to do well in the course itself, and how to prepare for the exam? Which prep books are the best?</p>
<p>In my opinion Princeton is pretty good of a book, but I haven’t gotten my scores yet so…
My friend bought Barron’s and we used both to study so that we’d have a pretty good coverage. Start practicing the essays early and hope you don’t have a crappy teacher. My teacher, this was his second year teaching it and everyone from last year failed (b/c of him). The s.o.b. waited till the last 3 weeks to teach us how to write the essays correctly (his excuse was that sophomores wait till the last second to do everything anyways) and he sucked at it. He would show us the rubrics but couldn’t really xplain anything and he made us do a couple practice essays but he would never go over them!</p>
<p>I’m sorry this turned into a rant. I’m just really frustrated and nervous. Just make sure to take good notes in class and read the text book, use crash course on youtube to study (John Greene was a better teacher than mine) and start studing from the review book about 3 months before the exam. You’ll probably do great since you are starting to get interested in the class before school even starts. Most people who do bad in the class do bad b/c they don’t care. You’ll be fine, good luck! :)</p>
<p>essays.
just learn the rubrics
if you buy crashcourse world history by REA they teach you everything you need to just make them check the rubric and get credit.
my teacher did not teach us shizz
just start learning early. I started working 24/7 before winter break and for me it really paid off
gluck!
dont be scared of some statistic. 5.7% means that peopel still got 5s :D</p>
<p>Essays:
Master essays right off the bat. Learn what the rubric is asking. Memorize the points you need to check off. The World History essays are each distinctly different. Style doesn’t matter. Only facts. If you are factually accurate, incorporate each part of the rubric into the essay, and have very minimal coherency, you can get a 7/8/9 easily. If given a broad topic, focus on a smaller part - for instance, when asked about the colonization of Africa, talk about the Congo, if that’s what you know the most about. If asked about the Mediterranean, talk about Rome. Your thesis NEEDS to answer the question. Don’t say that there were changes and continuities, actually IDENTIFY the continuities and changes. </p>
<p>Ex: “Between XXXX and XXXX in the region of XYZ, this ____ changed, and this _____ remained the same.” </p>
<p>Multiple Choice:
Pace yourself, don’t rush through the questions, but also don’t spend more than 60-70 seconds on a question. Eliminate answers that are obviously wrong. When in doubt, guess. </p>
<p>In the Class:
Do your homework. Always. Take notes. Good notes. And most importantly, READ. Even if you don’t have time to do that worksheet/project/etc, make sure you actually read the material. Listen to class discussions and teacher’s lectures. If Hinduism confuses you, go to the teacher and ask him/her to explain it. If you’re still confused, go to the internet. </p>
<p>Think of the material as a story or a T.V. show - that’s what me and my friends did. We saw things as a soap opera, where historical figures were actors/actresses and events were episodes. Maybe that’s really lame, I don’t know, but it came in handy when I just so happened to recall obscure details about the Prophet Muhammad or Buddha. </p>
<p>Prep Books:
I’m wary of prep books - I believe that most people succeed in AP exams/classes through their hard work in and outside of the classroom though I know there are self study success stories. I myself used Kaplan and I got a 5, but I don’t think there’s a correlation. I worked really hard in WHAP, and the prep book had little effect on how I would/did perform on the test.</p>
<p>This year in my AP world history class we had MacBooks and our teacher lectured the entire time. Basically, everyone just played on their MacBook while the teacher talked. Nobody learned anything. When tests came around the teacher allowed us to bring in 2 pages of notes. The tests were also straight from the review she gave us, so we just out the review on our notes and got 100s on the test. No kidding. Joke class. Anyways, about 2 weeks before the test I started reading and read my entire textbook. I never used any other review, and looked at essay rubrics the night before the test. We never wrote an essay in class. Needless to say, I scored a 5.</p>
<p>Based on all these suggestions, I should start studying the essay rubrics and material pretty early. How many essays do you have to write on the exam and what are they?</p>
<p>3 essays
First one is document based question. Tey give you documents (around 8 or 9) and you write according to the prompt
Second one is the CCOT which is continuity and change over time. They give you 2 societies and you pick one and describe the continuities AND changes in a particular topic givrn to you by the prompt
Third one is KC which is key comparisons. Basically compare and contrast 2 societies (they usually give you three) within the same time period. </p>
<p>Quick note: for the theses in any of these essays you cannot simply put “there were changes and continuities” or “there were similarities and differences”. You must have something to prove through the means inwhich you are writing ie for CCOT “although there were many continuities, it was the changes in this time period that shaped the area to what it is today”. Thats what i put on the exam and I got a good score.
Goodluck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed response. It sounds pretty basic, but I know that it’ll be very difficult to write in a short amount of time. My other question was, how do I practice the essays using a prep book?</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to make an outline and have your teacher look over it since the book can’t actually score the thing for you. Also your teacher will be able to give you feedback on your essay which is another thing the prep books can’t do!</p>
<p>How you do on the actual exam really depends on your teacher. I was lucky to have a strict but good teacher and her tests made the exam look easy. Of course, you can end up having a joke teacher and be screwed too.</p>
<p>Well for one, I suggest to read the textbook, because I didn’t past the first few chapters/whenever I needed to look something up; I think I could’ve gotten a better grade in the class if I had. </p>
<p>Secondly, practice the FRQs. My teachers made us write a lot. For each of our tests we had to write all 3 FRQs. On the exam, I didn’t know the content of the questions very well, but I did know how to format the essays well enough to get by and if I hadn’t practiced writing them as much as I did, I would have done even worse on the exam. </p>
<p>One note about the DBQ: You can know nothing about the topic but still get a great score because it’s not about prior knowledge, but your comprehension of the documents and your writing. Prior knowledge can help, but it’s not a necessity.</p>
<p>Study before the exam, as in, a few weeks before, not 3 days before. I know some people who crammed and got a 5, but that doesn’t work for most people.</p>
<p>1) Pay attention in class and do all of your assignment. Understand themes, trends, continuities, and changes. Practice essays every two-three weeks. Use the released essays of course. Look at historical photos since there are always a few of these. There has also been quite a few short passages and quotes so practice analyzing those as well.</p>
<p>2) Once you know the material, it gets down to test taking skills. Even if the essay is on something you know nothing about, right about something. For example, religion and women’s rights are topics that show up in all parts of world history. With a good thesis, this could help you get a few points on something you know nothing about. Write a lot. For the DBQ I would say write 5 pages and four pages for the other two essays. The more your write, the more knowledgeable you seem about the topic. Follow the rubric and bring as much historical evident in as possible.</p>
<p>3) Buy REA crash course. I used no other prep book (others would use Barrons as well if time allows) and I thought this was sufficient. It is a condensed form of everything you need to know. Learning all of world history is impossible so it is good to know some of the things that will show up on the exam. Relax when you are taking your exam. Practice so you can move quickly on the MC and write a lot of information for the essays. A 4 or a 5 is very possible but the exam has changes and that is why the scores have gone down. It is less “knowing” and more analyzing based. Bio has also has lower 4s and 5s (but higher pass rates overall). This is because the curriculum has changes just like APWH.</p>
<p>Cheers (btw I love your username)</p>
<p>This may go against what EVERYONE ELSE seems to be saying, but… Save the focus on essay writing for about two months before the exam (so start around March 15.) It is impossible to write essays without having the facts/knowledge/content about the essay topic memorized, and because of that it is better to have covered all the content first before diving into essay writing. </p>
<p>The essays are going to be the worst and most formulaic pieces of writing you will likely ever do. Don’t worry about fancy words (except for the necessary vocabulary)or fancy paragraph structure. You just want to write to those basic core points, and it is quite easy to memorize them (the CCOT and Comparative share most of their core points.)</p>
<p>I am not a history buff. I just have a strong work ethic. The course is very manageable. March 15th I started reading the Princeton Review Book (it is fantastic, it doesn’t give you any more information than is absolutely necessary, no fluff like the other review books) and I wrote ~8 of each essay type… you can get the essays from the college board/ap website. I had a teacher grade them for me purely as a study tool, not a grade (we didn’t write an essay in class all year!) </p>
<p>I got a 5 on the AP World test this year, not because it was easy, but because I put in the work necessary (~100 extra hours outside of class.) You can do it too!</p>
<p>@RFAtoIVY: Seriously? You guys didn’t even write an essay on tests?</p>
<p>No. Never. Not even paragraphs. All tests were one sentence short answer or purely multiple choice. We even had true/false… in an AP class… -.- </p>
<p>Regardless, the point is that you can do well, despite an awful classroom experience.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the detailed responses, I really appreciate the great advice. At my school, some teachers have purely multiple choice while some add in essay questions as well. To summarize everyone’s points, I should: actually read the textbook, buy a prep book that summarizes info, work on essays a few months in advance, and try to practice released essays. My other question was what was it about this year’s AP exam that everyone struggled with? Some of my friends that took it this year said there were too many excerpts and reading questions, what do you guys think?</p>
<p>This year’s test was weird. There was a lot of reading. But… reading isn’t… hard? </p>
<p>If you were a bad time manager than you suffered on this year’s test. There weren’t any questions that were incredibly obscure (except for some random things about Polynesians but really, who cares about them.)</p>
<p>The essays were in my opinion a gift from God, because they were areas which I was strong in. However, the prompts seemed more… restrictive than in past years, especially for the CCOT. Either you understood what they were asking and how to answer them or you didn’t, and were screwed over.</p>
<p>Yes. What you have mentioned in the previous post was perfect. You’ve got the right idea.</p>
<p>Okay. Thanks. Do you know if the College Board will release this year’s AP world exam, so I can use it as a reference? I believe most people said that they’d never seen a harder world exam since most people prepared with tests that didn’t have as many excerpts. Anyway, I appreciate everyone’s input!</p>
<p>I took the exam this year and scored a 4, but i’ll let you know i wouldn’t have even got a 1 had i not bought a princeton review book. Our class was a joke. The teacher had no clue what he was doing, so everyone ended up with A’s and B’s. DO NOT wait until 10 days before the exam to start reading like i did. I ended up cramming the whole book. I know a lot of people always say start reading early; they’re not saying it for fun! Actually read the book early. I would suggest start reading january/february, understand the material and then start writing essays. It’s fairly difficult to write essays if you don’t know the content. Also, maybe it was me, but crash course is terrible. Mr greene talks super fast. This is my 2nd Ap course, as i took ap us history last year. If you thought ap us was hard (not sure if you’ve taken it yet), ap world will be a struggle. I thought ap us was super easy (got a 4), and i still had a very tough time taking the ap world exam. Just start studying VERY early,so you have time to thoroughly do essays and understand everything. Also. Our exam had a lot of quotes and used alot of scenarios where it had 2 quotes and you had to explain why one quote ridiculed the other. Very strange. Do NOT focus on the people for MUltiple choice questions. I don’t even think there was a question about any person in history. Don’t do like i did. Alot of upperclassmen said the exam was the hardest they’ve taken (some said harder then chem), but i ignored them because i thought the class was the same as apush (so, easy). It’s not! It’s tough.
Edit: also, stick to the rubric that’s posted online when writing essays. Write to the rubric and nothing else. Forget what your englisg teacher taught you about essays, write as the rubric says. I don’t believe ap board releases multiple choice tests online. I could be wrong</p>
<p>^Thanks for your detailed response. I’ll definitely start preparing early. I’ve already ordered AP World prep books, so I think I’ll be set in September. At my school, there are some AP World teachers that are amazing, but only give out a few good grades, and some AP teachers who have full multiple choice tests, where it’s easy to get an A. I’m kind of hoping to get the best of both, but I’ll only find out who I’m getting in August. By the way, I’ve ordered 5 Steps to a 5, is it a good prep book for AP World?</p>
<p>For me, the MC was really easy (except for maybe one or two of the excerpt questions), but the FRQ questions were ones I didn’t know that well. So it really just depends on the person. Luckily with the DBQ, you don’t need any prior knowledge, though I probably could’ve scored better if I did have knowledge about the subject area.</p>
<p>I had 5 Steps to a 5, and didn’t use it a whole lot. It seemed okay, for what I did review, but I think PR or Barrons is better from what I’ve heard people say.</p>