Currently i a junior in high school taking: spanish 4H, AP Language, AP US History, Intro to Calc H, and Chemistry regular. In all my honors classes my current average is 85-90 unweighted. I know these aren’t horrible grades but everyone around me is doing so good in these classes. In APUSH I’ve gotten a 77 on the last two tests and i don’t know what im doing wrong. i read the text book, i took notes, i started studying 2 days before and i did horrible. But my best friend who doesn’t study and is new to an AP Social studies class like me, took the test and got in the high 90s. In Calculus i really thought i aced the test like at least high 90s, i look at my grade entered online, I got an 81. Im so upset i needed it to bring up my average. Im scared that i won’t get into a good school. Im scared i can’t find what im doing wrong. i really just need some advice
You have a tough schedule, and junior year is the toughest year of high school. Some people have a knack for some subjects – for my kids, history is “sticky” – they are interested, and remember what they hear and read quite quickly. But not every subject is that way (French? Forget about it.)
Go see your teacher for help. See if you can get you friend with high grades to study with you (they may have studied more than they admitted!).
85-90 is probably a B+ average. My kid with a B+ average got into some very good schools (UChicago, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Carleton, Kenyon, Macalester, Mount Holyoke, Lawrence), some of them with nice merit scholarships. Keep putting in the work, it will pay off.
Do you have enough time to study? Do you have too many ECs or a job that takes a lot of time? You want to keep the ECs that matter most to you, but if there is someplace you can pare back to make more time for studying, that could really help.
Well to improve your grade you should change the way you study before tests. I memorize vocab for AP Gov vocab quizzes using quizlet, but for tests I do something else. I pick a room in my house and fill it with topics relating to the chapter (like boats for immigration, maps for population) and use association with he objects. For example, for the third great wave of immigration I have a ship split in two, one half with a Chinese calligraphy character and the other with an n with a tilde, because it is mainly Hispanics and Asians, See what strategy works best for you.