<p>Can you give us, first-timers, any advice on how to manage your time well and score as high as possible? What method(s) do you use to finish on time or complete all of the easy questions first? Do you quickly do all of the ones you know how to first and the go back to the others? </p>
<p>Is it better to check your work after you do every problem or check your work after you've completed every one that you can do? How fast should you go through every problem?</p>
<p>When I do math/science multiple choice tests, I like to go through the entire test first, answering only the questions I can get right away or with minimal work. Then I circle the ones that I know I can solve and x the ones I have no clue on. Then the second time through I do the circled questions and only if I have time do I go back for the x's.</p>
<p>If you see a question that requires calculation that you don't know how to do immediately, skip it. Go back if you have time [If you know how to do it but realize it'll take a long time, skip it as well but make a big star or circle somewhere near it so you can go back to it first]</p>
<p>For slow readers: If you see an English question and you don't really know where to look for the answer (lines aren't cited) and you don't know the answer (general idea answer), skip it.</p>
<p>For fast readers: If you see an English question and you don't really know where to look for the answer, reskim/read random parts of the passage and if you can't find it in a quick glance through, skip it (unless you can easily correct your mistake).</p>
<p>[Note: If you are a fast reader but might forget things about passages and would need to reread them fully after you return for a second round at the questions, then go back to your skipped questions after you finish the full set for a prompt</p>
<p>If you are a slow reader, I'd suggest just moving along because you might get too bogged down in a passage and each passage tends to have about an equal amount of questions (except I think the one in the middle has the most qs)]</p>
<p>If you see a knowledge question and don't know the answer, knock out the obviously wrong ones and just make an educated guess. Don't spend too much time thinking (especially if it's one between 2 choices), just go with a gut guessing feeling. If you only narrow it down to 3/4 choices and have a queasy feeling about guessing, just skip it and go back later.</p>
<p>Don't check your work as you go. You can check as you go back to answer skipped questions if you have a good amount of time remaining after your first try. If you don't have time, just go back and try to answer the ones you skipped.</p>
<p>Work only as fast as you can, but don't let your mind stagnate on a question.</p>
<p>Also, if you are doing a calculation problem and get the wrong answer (something that's not a choice) then don't redo the problem in frustration. Just skip it and go back if you have time.</p>
<p>Just go through the test as fast and as accurately as possible the first time before going back and checking/fixing mistakes.</p>
<p>finish a page of questions before bubbling in the scantron. bubbling one at a time is just distracting. </p>
<p>make sure you go through the test at least once, however so. </p>
<p>keep focus. </p>
<p>if you have an afternoon test, reviewing a little in the morning helps, a lot. </p>
<p>study. the number one reason people do not pass AP tests is because they do not study for AP tests. yes, that means get off CC and start reading.</p>
<p>its not the end of the world if you do bad. it just looks really bad. =]</p>
<p>So this question is for virtually everyone on CC. Everyone seems to get a 4 or 5 on at LEAST 1 AP.</p>
<p>i don't think there is any real advise i can give you other thank KNOW YOUR **** before you walk into your room. i took 4 ap tests in the past 5 days, and i had NO trouble finishing any of them in time because i KNEW my ****. for example, on US gov, i finished 100-minute essay section with 40 min to spare. ap exams are NOT designed to force you to rush through them. if anything, they time limits they give are lenient (assuming you know what your doing). so really, as long as you know the information covered by the exam, you should be fine, and you shouldn't waste your time worrying about timing.</p>
<p>i dont know about other people, but i find cramming most effective for me, it helps get the information in last minute and i retain it better in that short period of time</p>
<p>This year has been my first experience at AP tests. But what my teachers recommended was to relax the week of the AP test. They've already crammed us with FRQ's (calc), MC (chem). Two weeks before, I read through my prep book for AP Euro and did both sample MC exams, in addition to two samples given in class. The night before calc and euro, I basically just relaxed the whole afternoon after class. I don't know how well I did, but I'm pretty sure I passed. The key is to know your stuff and get it down well before the exam, and then relax or just glance over stuff the night before.</p>
<p>I got a 4 on Euro, and a 5 on my practice Chem. Hopefully I could repeat these scores on the 4 test I took/will take this year. </p>
<p>On the Euro, I just basically tried to answer the question on my own as I was reading the question. Then I quickly perused the choices, crossing out ones I knew were wrong until I found a definative answer. This would take me, I guess, anywhere from 10-20 seconds per question. If you're left between two or three, I circle the qeustion and I move on. If I can only eliminate one or none, I don't mark it at all and I keep going. I'd come back to do the circled ones (educated quessing :D), and then if I had more time, I'd re-read the ones I just skipped and do the ones I might be able to do. This doesn't help since all the history APs are over. :/</p>
<p>On Chem, I JUST made a 5 (needed a raw 107, and I got a 108). However, I just did what I could first -- even the mathy ones (I do math by hand really quickly).I usally get through the whole thing with about 20 blank with about 10 minutes remaing. I just then try to go back and answer about 5 more. This got a me a raw 49 on my first practice (I answered about 60-something and got low-50-something right.</p>
<p>i've gotten a 5 on ap world and took ap us friday. I pretty much study the week of the test, and the time on the ap test itself seems to go slower than it seems. I almost always have time where i can just sit there and do nothing because I've already checked everything various times. I personally do all the m/c and then go back and bubble, it saves time.</p>
<p>Don't write conclusions on AP English test essays.. just finish off your final body paragraph with a nice, polished statement.</p>
<p>This has been said before, but it needs to be emphasized: Don't bubble in answers after every question. Circle in an entire page or two of answers and bubble them in as a set.</p>
<p>why bubble as a set?</p>
<p>
[quote]
why bubble as a set?
[/quote]
It saves time. I actually circle answers to the entire test before transferring them to my answer sheet. That way, I don't have to constantly switch my focus between the answer sheet and the test booklet.</p>
<p>The problem with bubbling as a set is that you run a risk of getting off by maybe one question, and totally screwing up your entire test.</p>
<p>Besides knowing your stuff before the test:</p>
<p>1.) Eat breakfast.</p>
<p>2.) Get a good nights sleep. Wake up early enough that you feel awake if you have a morning test- I plan on going to bed around 9 tonight and getting up at 5, a solid 8 hours, and I will definitely be wide eyed for the test a 8.</p>
<p>3.) Avoid caffeine the morning of the test- it makes you jittery, and you eventually WILL crash, most likely DURING the test. Also, this brings me to number 4...</p>
<p>4.) GO TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE THE TEST. GO TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE THE TEST. Breaks are not long, and you might not even be able to leave to find a nearby restroom. Trust me, you DO NOT want to have to go pee really bad during the test.</p>
<p>5.) Do not stress over the FRQ. Doing the multiple choice first helps you to bring knowledge of the topic up front of your mind. You'll find you do better on a FRQ after doing 100 MC about the subject.</p>
<p>6.) Don't stress over time. Just try your best, and you WILL do okay.</p>
<p>For the multiple choice, I write all of my answers at the bottom of the page, leaving huge boxes to make sure I know to leave a blank for the scantron. Then, after I finish the first pass, I bubble in all of the answers I knew. Then I go back one by one. I'm not sure how I'm going to score in Calc/APUSH, but I think it worked.</p>
<p>Bubbling in one-by-one takes your mind off the questions. Answer, bubble, answer, bubble.
If you bubble in once, you can answer answer, bubble. It saves time.</p>
<p>what i did to get my 5 on AP Govt. (US) (and what i'll do/did this year on Euro, English, and Chem):</p>
<ol>
<li>If you're taking an afternoon test, don't go into school until the test. This way, you'll be ready to take the test, with nothing from the day to distract you. This can also help you find extra time to study before the test :)</li>
<li>Take your time. If you rush, you'll probably miss more than a few questions than you would have if you took your time.</li>
<li>I found that bubbling one at a time worked for me. But then again, neither time nor focus were my problems.</li>
</ol>
<p>and above all, get a decent amount of sleep. It'll help a lot.</p>
<p>hey what is your opinion on guessing? i expect a 5 on all of my ap tests, and i always guess on even those that i have almost no idea on. i figure that if i guess even on those i have no idea on (which are pretty few), i only need to get 1 out of 5 right in order to break even. is that good reasoning or should i just leave those i have almost no idea on blank?</p>
<p>Good replies everyone. So if you should come by a question that you think an answer is correct ( a conceptual question) not aren't 100% sure, should I pick it and move on? or should you try to prove the answer you think is correct by doing work like writing down equations and finding relationships?</p>
<p>I would just bubble in your answer first if you're pretty sure. And then come back to the question if you have time. I find that I never really have much time to double-check my work, so that's why. On the answer sheet I just put a little dot by the number--that's what I did for AP US this year.</p>
<p>I remember last year I circled the numbers on the test booklet, but that wasn't good, because when I wanted to go back and see which ones I left blank I had to flip through the whole booklet, which is not what you want. Also, if you put small marks on your answer sheet, you can get a better sense of how many you left blank.</p>
<p>And always, always, always use process of elimination, and guess if you can eliminate 2 or more.</p>