<p>I posted this in the AP's forum but I didn't get much response, so I'm posting it here</p>
<p>Here's my predicament. I'm currently a junior right now. I'm currently taking two AP's: AP Chemistry and AP US History.
I'm planning to self-study for AP Psychology. Last year, I didn't take any AP's which was a huge mistake for me. (I didn't take any because I'm a first generation American citizen and I didn't know of the importance of AP's. I plan to take AP Physics C, AP Calculus BC, AP Comp Science, AP Economics, AP Stats, and ~AP English or AP World.</p>
<p>In order to relieve some burden, is there any AP I can self-study for this year?</p>
<p>I'm really interested in math and history as well as business.</p>
<p>AP Chem and AP Psych are on the same day which scares me, frankly. However, APUSH is on another day. How hard is it to self-study for AP World or AP Gov't? I don't want the exam date to be close or on the same days that I'm currently taking my expected tests.</p>
<p>Haha, nice profile picture. Didn’t know so many people liked One Piece on here.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think Psychology would be fine for now. 8 APs is competitive enough, probably.</p>
<p>Thanks. I’m a huge fan of One Piece. I didn’t know that anybody else liked One Piece on this forum. That’s how I decided on my name. Red Hawk=Hawk +Ace= Hawkace</p>
<p>AP Government would probably be the easiest to self study – a lot of it is current events and much of it is rather light in terms of density of content. You can breeze through a lot of it in a few sittings. </p>
<p>For AP Gov’t, is it imperative that you know specific cases and how government works with other countries? Could you give me a brief explanation? thanks. 
@preamble1776</p>
<p>AP Government, to my understanding, is divided into two parts. </p>
<p>1) How the government is supposed to work. This is referred to as constitutional theory. The underpinnings of the American government as outlined by the United States Constitution. In this section, you learn the fundamentals of different parts of government, their functions, their limitations, their powers, and so forth. Its considered the easier of the two halves as much of it is material you’ve been exposed to before – such as Presidential term limits, Congressional veto powers, Federalism, etc.</p>
<p>2) How the government ACTUALLY works. This is the section where you begin to study modern government in action - it can be really confusing. You learn about hard money and soft money, campaign financing, loop holes in Congress (the filibuster, for instance) – political action committees, the media’s influence on public opinion, public opinion polling and its own influence (**how public opinion is gathered, fostered, transferred, shaped, manipulated, so on, and so forth), how bureaucracy in the White House works and the chain of command between offices and departments. You’ll learn how a Congressman keeps his job when he has to please a constituency that put him into power while also catering to the interest groups and PACs which funded his campaign. A lot of it is frustrating, because you really want to believe that the American government is the closest thing to perfect that the world has in terms of a Republican Democracy – but AP Gov teaches you otherwise. </p>
<p>Some of the most interesting stuff I’ve been exposed to in my entire high school career, honestly. :)</p>