<p>Whatever I try to do to get an A in my AP US History class, I cannot seem to go past a low B+. While I'm personally quite interested in that class, I cannot seem to figure out why I cannot get an A unlike other classes. This is very similar to the case last year with AP European History.</p>
<p>What are some tips to help me do better in history classes? Should I read over my history texts twice instead of once? What method works the best?</p>
<p>It always seems like I'm memorizing lots of trivia, and the test just kills me. This type of stuff never happens to me in any of my other classes.</p>
<p>Or, should I just accept the fact that I can't be good at everything, and that I particularly suck at history?</p>
<p>well for one, reading it over as many times as possible is ideal. twice would be good. also, dont over-hilight. if names and terms are big on exams, just hilight those, otherwise avoid it altogether. Also, if you have time, outline the chapter. summarize each section of the chapter in your own words. Also, definitely look over class notes and perhaps add them to your outline. Lastly, if there are some available online, take a practice quiz just to gauge how well you've been studying, maybe. good luck, i'm struggling with history now too:D</p>
<p>Woah, never thought about doing all that for history.</p>
<p>I usually just read it only once and pay attention in class (but no notes). I wonder if that explains it.</p>
<p>What you are doing is definitely not enough. I suggest you do what Greendayfan suggested, and you will see a grade increase. AP U.S. is not a b.s. course, at least not at my school.</p>
<p>maybe history isn't your thing. i didn't need to study that much for apush and got an a+. what you should do is read the book, take notes if you need to, and if its possible before the test, look at your textbook's website. our book had a website with a summary, t/f quiz/, mult. choice quiz, a flashcard thing with terms, and and essay thing for each chapter. the problems on the website were the type of problems that were on the test. memorizing facts will help but you need to understand the material. our tests were pretty hard mainly because of the fact that most of the questions were like critical thinking.</p>
<p>I did a ton of work for APUSH last year, even though all our tests were made up of MC questions from the book. My teacher made us do section outlines where we summarized each section with a sentence. I didn't think this was enough, so by the end of the year, I was making two outlines per chapter (one to pass in for homework, one for myself). The good thing about making detailed chapter notes is that you don't really need to reread the book, and that saves you time.</p>
<p>However, at the beginning of the year, I read the book once when I outlined it and then read it again the night before the test (this might be hard to do for multi-chapter tests, though). I'm a visual learner, so after reading it twice, I could basically imagine where on the page certain information fell, which helped me remember most of the details.</p>
<p>We also had pop reading quizzes in class after beginning a new chapter. They were from a list of IDs that she gave us, and we had to define and give the significance of two out of the three IDs she gave us on the quiz. After doing poorly on the first couple, I learned to do the IDs beforehand. It was extra work, but it boosted my reading quiz grades.</p>
<p>I rarely took notes in class because there weren't a lot of good notes to take. I realized that when I was studying for the midterm, so for the midterm, I actually went back through the earliest chapters and re-outlined them all (took up a huge amount of time, but it helped me study). These outlines really helped me remember the information for the AP test.</p>
<p>wow you cc people know how to study-esp Greendayfan and demeter! Just want to add that there are GREAT study guides out there-for example just google like "AP American study guide". I did for euro history and got a great 50 page long study sheet of about 700 years of history.</p>
<p>just type in "topic, i.e. civil war" quizzes (or tests) on a search engine and take the practice ones..its better than a textbook</p>