<p>Okay, so AP tests are in less than a month (eep!) and I'd love to know, from those who passed the tests with 4s and 5s (and even 3s) what your secret was. Did you cram the night before? Study for a few hours a day? Did you use Barron's and Princeton review books, outline, flashcards, lots of practice tests? What do you suggest for those of us starting our own intense studying? </p>
<p>Any advice on how to get that coveted 5 would be appreciated! BTW, I posted this in here because there seem to be a lot more people who have taken & passed the tests than in the forum where it probably should be, High School Life.</p>
<p>Alright this is what I did, and I really would not recommend it to anybody else unless under extreme circumstances. </p>
<p>Okay, I had to deal with some research at my HS and was dealing with collecting results and packaging data for the CA state science fair, and completely neglected my AP exams until 1 week before. I even skipped about 40% of my overall classes, slept in the other 50% and then actually paid attention in Eng Lit(she forced me!). The other cause of this was my addiction to WoW and the existince of a really serious girlfriend. I was also dealing with my parent's divorce and its cause of me not being able to go to my top college. blah blah blah drama. </p>
<p>For the AP exams, I bought study guides for 5 of my 7 exams, scrapping eng lit and AP gov. I would spend the night before each exam reading the entire thing and then NOT GO TO SLEEP and go to school initially tired, but not having that loss of memory after even napping. Before each exams I would buy 3 cherry cokes and through the course of the exam consume them for energy.</p>
<p>There were obvious flaws to this, as I fell asleep multiple times, especially during Econ and AP Lit (during the essays >_>) which were my 3s. But usually they gave you enough time for that. </p>
<p>As for the days between exams, mild broad studying with a primary focus on sleep. My downfall though was that I had 5 exams in 4 days, and the couple at the end were my two 4s and my econ 3. Other than that this got me 5s. </p>
<p>Extract what you can from this; if anything this story will hopefully deter you from pulling this same crap.</p>
<p>Buy anyways: AP study books are very helpful, especially at covering area that your teacher might have missed. I have a preference for PR myself. The thing is, for outlines, flashcards, and all that other crap, I never really saw the point in making your own if you have a book with all of the same info in it. If anything the most effective thing for learning I ever did was sort of 'making' my own textbook on my computer (AP US hist, junior year) which took maybe 22 hours as a whole, and from intial notetaking to proofreading, the knowledge just stuck.</p>
<p>Don't study for the english exams. Just, the night before, when you're laying in bed, go over everything youve learned. Its really not a lot, just think about what you have to do and how to do it. Then sleep, and go take the test.</p>
<p>There is a book from Sparknotes I would recommend for the English Literature. It contains brief summaries for 100+ books (could be up to 250, cant remem), which is very helpful for just looking over for a couple of days before the the exam, to refresh your memory on symbols and such.</p>
<p>If you are currently in the class you shouldn't really need to do any extra studying. Review past study guides and go to review sessions but other then that you should be fine. The tests aren't all that difficult if your teachers covered the subject matter effectively.</p>
<p>I would only ever study the night before (now that I think about it the first time I ever studied for a test more than the night before was sophmore year in college), and I did very well (7 5s, a 4 and a 2, God did I hate Spanish). This is of course only counting what I studied on my own, not the study sessions my class would have. Mostly I would go over as much as I could up to around 11PM for ones like history and the sciences and then take a practice test and go to bed around 12 since I rushed through the practice exams. For Enlgish I didn't study at all, just kind of made a big list of all the books I knew and small things about them and stuff like that so if there was a general question I could easily apply it to something fresh in my mind (the bible is great for this, I'm an atheist, but my essays for english AP made be sound evangelical they were so biblical). For Spanish I think I spent the night making fun of my teacher with my friends and laughing as I failed miserably at the practice tests.</p>
<p>So thats how I did it. Honestly, the most helpful thing is to do a bunch of old exams. For AP Chem I didn't have a teacher for 3 months (kidney transplant) and I got a 5 just by doing every exam they had ever released to the public.</p>
<p>Do as many practice exams as you can. I would suggest spending your time doing these, than actually going over the material (if you only have a week or two that is).I also skipped the day before the exam and studied, but that would be hard for someone else if they have exams everyday that week.</p>