My son is going to grade 11 this year. He got a 3 in human geography in freshman year and 3 on ap euro and ap world in sophomore. He studied his Barron’s book, school work whatever teachers gave, online papers, etc. His teachers did not concerntrate much on essays. This year he has taken 5 aps. He is good at studies and can manage it. He is a straight A student in all subjects. Can anyone suggest what else and how can he study for ap especially essays. He iis worried about his scores next year. Is there a way he can get essays corrected? How else can he score better. Are there any more practice books. He knows about barrons princetons review books
Can you list which AP’s he’s going to take? Every AP’s preparation is different.
He will be taking Ap bio, Ap phy, Ap Calculus, Ap emg Lang, Apush in junior year.
This sounds like grade inflation from your son’s school… If a student gets an A in the class, they are usually expected to get a 4 or a 5 on the actual AP test, especially in APHUG, which is widely considered to be the easiest AP test. Is the problem with your son’s teachers? At this rate, he should do some other studying on the side along with the class work he does.
@michelle426 It’s not always grade inflation. Our valedictorian (and some other top students) made a 3 on the APWH exam last year and she made over 100s both semesters in the class. We had a great teacher who graded fairly, and several people came out with 4s and 5s. I’m not saying this is the case for her son, but some people just aren’t great standardized test takers, some have bad days, or some don’t prepare adequately enough for the exam as they did for every test in the class…
It’s okay if he doesn’t do great on every single AP exam. Those don’t hurt your son’s chances in admissions. Your son should be more concerned with his grades in the class. In order to do well on the exams, he will have to manage his time very well and make study plans for at least a month or two in advance before the exams. Here are some review books I think/have heard are good for his subjects:
AP Bio: CliffsNotes
AP Eng Lang: CliffsNotes
APUSH: AMSCO and Princeton Review
Good luck to him next year!
Thank you everyone for giving your inputs. Sometimes we fail to see thru different angles. I have joined this parent forum first time and looks like it does help. Thanks for the names of these books. He says he will be adding cliff notes and amsco in his list of study material.
@FluffyPanda438 All things aside, I recommend Crash Course APUSH for your son’s APUSH studying.
I got a 5 on the redesigned APUSH test this year and reviewed with a Princeton Review book based on the old test. I found it to have a lot of helpful content and even though the multiple choice in the book is not similar to the multiple choice on the exam, it was still helpful in drilling content. The good thing about the redesigned APUSH exam is that the essays have a specific rubric. So he can do practice essays and then grade himself using the rubric that details what a student must do to earn the points.
I also got a 5 on AP Lang. I didn’t do much outside preparation for this. I did a few practice multiple choice sections from old exams and wrote probably 5 of each type of essay on the exam. Maybe your son can look at released essay prompts and responses from previous years and see what it takes to earn a 5, 6, 8, etc on an essay. In class we would look at the sample essays and discuss strengths and weaknesses and brainstorm ways to make the essay better.