<p>If you aren't so history-oriented, don't fall into procrastinating on theUS history exam. I reread the first 10 chapters of my Pageant textbook and--SURPRISE! discovering that would take waaay too much time--I used REA's US history review book, which is superb. I also utilized collegeboard's free-response questions posted online from previous years...I did all this several months before the exam and greatly appreciated the result</p>
<p>first off i'd like to say that the fundemental idea behind this thread is stupid, but i'll give my advice to anybody who wants it after having taken a year of apush (and world history the year before) along with 6 other aps (us gov, comb sci ab, calc bc, spanish lang, chemistry, english lang)</p>
<p>if you want to suceed in ANY AP class, there's only ONE thing you HAVE to do, and that is do the homework and study for the tests. this is especially true in history, where the teacher's only real job is to "help" you improve your essay writing skills, which SHOULD be at least mediocre upon entering soph/junior year anyways. all of the people who blame their teacher for sucking and having to cram in the last 1-2-3 weeks using AMSCO or REA or PR just didn't do **** for most of the year and started freaking out in april. in history especially, you don't need a teacher, you just need to read the textbook over the course of the year, and if you don't have great memory, review for an hour a day in the final week before the exam. you shouldn't spend any more than 7 hours studying for an AP in the final weeks (unless you didn't do **** all year or you're self-studying). i didn't study for the APUSH exam for more than 3 minutes, and yes, i got a 5, not that it really matters.</p>
<p>the same even applies to maths and sciences as well, though not quite to the extent that it applies to history. those of you who say your science teacher sucked, i'm sorry, but considering that the AP sciences are only FRESHMEN level courses in college, you shouldn't need somebody to explain to you every god damned detail. just read the <strong><em>ing textbook, and rather than whining like a little *</em></strong> when you don't understand, reread it and THINK about what you're reading and do that over and over until you understand. Until you get to graduate level courses, NOTHING is so conceptually challenging that you NEED a teacher to learn the stuff.</p>
<p>the only APs where hard work doesn't guarantee a 5 are english and foreign languages, simply because the nature of the exams. english lang and lit are the 2 ap exams with the LOWEST 5 rate's among ALL ap exams, primarily because they're almost completely skills based tests (as opposed to knowledge based). while foreign languages are much more knowledge based then english lang and lit, i know its almost impossible to "study" listening and speaking, and i also know that they're ****ing hard as hell, and you can get screwed just because you didn't know the meaning of a select few words that happened to be heavily tested on the exam.</p>
<p>in conclusion, please stop making threads about OMFG NEED TO PREP NEXT YEAR FOR AP EXAM X. yes i know we're in high school and CB is wanting us to perform at collegelevel, but part of performing at collegelevel is having the maturity of a college student, a large part of which is NOT complaining about poor teachers and NOT stressing over one stupid UNDERGRADUATE class. just do what your teacher tells you, and if you feel uncomforatable come march time, then do a little more than your teacher tells you to, and you should be guaranteed a 4 or 5.</p>
<p>^^^ No one is suggestion that you slack for the whole year. We're giving advice on the best way to review books out there. Sometimes teachers aren't competent enough. And a review book is necessary to compliment the information already gained through the class...</p>
<p>========</p>
<p>Don't use Princeton Review's book.</p>
<p>It's incomplete, it doesn't have all the necessary information. </p>
<p>It gives you false strategies that don't work. (I tried...)</p>
<p>Stick with AMSCO. It's very complete.</p>
<p>I would say Princeton Review is good for last minute review. I never used its strategies. REA has good practice tests.</p>
<p>I've never used AMSCO, but I think it's supposed to be good.</p>
<p>Yeah...to the guy from 2 posts ago....in no way is anyone trying to say slack off the whole year until weeks before the exam....people here I'm sure work their tails off the school year but is it not inevitable to be somewhat worried, especially if you care for your future? So, if u have a problem, dont read any of these threads.</p>
<p>I thought APUSH this year was really easy, as long as you know your stuff. It's a good idea to read barrons SATII as it helps organize info</p>
<p>I agree with the above post...also, know important shifts in political power like the counterculture, the conservative movement, progressive movement and different reforms that will all be covered, but be sure that all of this is prepared for well for the AP test</p>
<p>if you have BRINKLEY and AMSCO and the teacher tells you to read brinkley DO NOTTAKE THE SHORTCUT AND READ AMSCO</p>
<p>Well coming from a person who has gotten a 5 on the test... :) :) and has done so well in the class. </p>
<p>Okay enough gloating. </p>
<p>I would recommend that you do RANDOM essay questions cuz that would prepare you for the questions on the exam. Also make sure you do some multiple choice question tests and see what you got wrong.</p>
<p>Overall for the class just pay attention, read the stuff and read the review book if you have doubts.</p>
<p>Scores: 5 / 770
Books I used:</p>
<p>amsco
american paegant (only like chapters 1 - 10)
sparknotes us history outlines</p>
<p>Don't only study the political aspect of history (court cases, presidents, laws, tariffs, etc) because The MCQ part covers a lot of cultural and social trends. Be sure to know the major trends that occurred <-- AMSCO does this VERY WELL!</p>
<p>be aware of the books that had a big impact on history (Silent Spring, how the other half lives, Turner thesis, man in the gray flannel suit, uncle tom's cabin, etc...) <--- wikipedia is your friend for this! </p>
<p>Also know the journey and struggle of Native Americas from the 16th century to the 20th</p>
<p>Read your textbook. If it's American Pageant (but even if it isn't) use apnotes.net. I printed out all the notes all year but here's the kicker...I would read each section once without taking notes, then go back through the apnotes.net notes and see what was there, then added to them my own notes, if needed.</p>
<p>Buy a review book, AMSCO or (my favorite) REA "the magic tome." Helpful.</p>
<p>Try to enjoy history class, even if its boring at times.</p>
<p>Take the SAT II for US history in May, then the AP test in June. </p>
<p>I got a 5 on the AP exam and a 760 on the SAT II, so I'm at least somewhat qualified to dispense above info. :)</p>
<p>Ahh, yes AP us history...i remember the dreaded outlines of the chapters we had to do in order to be allowed a retake on tests</p>
<p>READ AMSCO!! It's APUSH BIBLE.
My class also used the American Pageant book. I only read at the most 3 chapters out of that book and copied MOST of my notes off wikinotes. I actually did pretty bad on our "mock AP Test". Our teacher had the most ridiculous multiple choice questions, but then again, I suck at multiple choice. (I'm a DBQ-FRQ kinda of a person) I have a B average in that class.
After reading AMSCO, I scored a 5, despite my lower 600s on the SAT II USH (Bad Day).</p>
<p>@copefan. How could you take the AP Test in June?</p>
<p>We used American Pageant last year...We just got a new APUSH book (no idea what it is). There were 39 4s and 5s out of 60 people taught by my teacher...He supposed to be the "easier" of the 3 APUSH teachers at our school, but he's really good. </p>
<p>When studying for the test, don't just memorize certain details. Take the time to find trends and learn the ideology of the times. That way, when you go back to review, you can just link details to concepts. Details generally start flowing back when you review, so it's not that big of a deal. In my opinion, that's the best way of studying. </p>
<p>Practice FRQs so that you're used to pooling together a vast amount of information in a small amount of time. The last thing you'd want while writing your essays would be trouble remembering stuff.</p>
<p>Oh, and if you use a book like American Pageant, you can try using the silly terms to memorize information. For example, I remember these just off the top of my head:</p>
<p>"Americans drank deeply from the gilded goblet" - Talking about materialism during the Roaring 20's. Then, other figures start popping up from memory like Fitzgerald and T.S Elliot and how they opposed the materialism.</p>
<p>"54'40 or fight!" - shows how adamant the Americans (warhawks) were in trying to obtain all of the Oregon territory.</p>
<p>"Ma, ma, where's my pa?" "Off to the White House, ha ha ha" - Okay, this one is just hilarious...Re: Cleveland and his bastard son. </p>
<p>Others would be "tread softly and use a big stick" (TR's foreign policy) or "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine - the continent liar from the state of Maine!"
Yeah, as you can tell, I'm terribly fond of these stupid quotes Bailey includes. However, they are great for remembering the mood of an era regarding certain events. Find things that are easy and fun to remember. I wholeheartedly detest social studies, but I got a 5 on APUSH because of things like that which were easy to remember.</p>
<p>A lot of people in my school got 5's. Which is funny, because my APUS teacher's APUS course was NOT approved by CollegeBoard. So stupid.</p>
<p>Anyway, I strongly recommend outlining the chapters in The American Pageant as you go along. And make sure you cover everything; we only got up to Vietnam in our class, but there wasn't much after that on the test so we were fine. Though I still would have felt more secure if I knew everything.</p>
<p>And cramming can be good. I bought the REA AP US book and highlighted as I read. Then, the night before, I skimmed it reading over the stuff I had highlighted. The next day, those little highlighted portions jumped to my memory when I reached a section about each of those topics.</p>
<p>I also suggest going in-depth about a few crucial periods for the FR questions: usually there's somethign about the progressive era, wwii/depression, revolutionary war, and/or civil war. learn a lot about those. Learn the rest, too, of course, but know a lot about a few things.</p>
<p>how is the book: "Liberty, Equality, Power?" my teacher chose that as the textbook. has anyone else used it before?</p>
<p>I've never used it.</p>
<p>studying, thats just silly!
jk, but seriously, if you are taking the AP us history course and the teacher is decent, you should be able to do well on the exam. i had two teachers, one the first half of the year who also taught my ap us gov class who isnt a good teacher for people who cant learn on their own, and the guy in the 2nd half was really good and made us learn stuff and bring it all together.
amsco is god, and if you just read through amsco after taking the class, you;'ll do fine. i remember the night b4 the exam, i read through amsco as much as i could, probably got through 60% of it. btw, dont do wat i did and cram the night b4, its a pain. know how to work DBQs. they arent that hard after practicing, you're just looking at documents and realizing wat they obviously imply and grouping them together into sets that you use in paragraphs plus random info that just comes to mind.
we had two classes prolly 60 pplz and most got 5s, some 4s, maybe one 3, but i think my teacher said only one person ever got a 3 in the history of his class</p>
<p>Presidents and Periods.
If you kno who was in office, and what period it was (Gilded Age, Reconstructoin, etc), you predict many things</p>
<p>this might be kinda repetitive, but here's what I used (received a 5):</p>
<p>AMSCO -- I don't think reading the text book (I had American Pageant) is necessary for getting a 5, only important for getting an A in the class; AMSCO tells you everything you would need to know for both the AP and SAT II. I recommend reading it from the beginning of the school year and doing the practice DBQs and MCs from in there (the answers have to be purchased separately). I think if I had done that, my SAT II score might have been higher (I got 720).
--to be honest, I only thorougly read around 75% of the book, up to around the year 1940. On the day of the AP exam, I seriously regreted this, as the last essay topic was on modern presidents, so I had to bs a few paragraphs on Nixon and Roosevelt. The curve was swell though, since my actual grade was a 5. </p>
<p>CourseNotes -- <a href="http://www.course-notes.org/US_History/Outlines/%5B/url%5D">http://www.course-notes.org/US_History/Outlines/</a>
-sums up all crucial figures and events in concise outlines</p>
<p>SparkCharts - key dates and events (there are two: one from 1600s to 1865 or so, and the other one from 1865 to now)</p>
<p>if you want an actual prep book, Kaplan is pretty good. I used it mainly for the SAT II, but it's useful for the AP too. </p>
<p>I crammed everything the night before the test in 6 hours, so I think you'll easily pull off a 5 if you begin studying early.</p>