I got a B- in World History HN and stated worrying about AP World History next year. When asked my current history teacher for suggestions, she replied as follows.
You are very good at explaining the basic information (who, what, when, where) it is the why that you struggle with. You need to critically think about the information and ask yourself why? Why did it happen? Why do we study it? Why is it important? I also think you could spend some time decoding primary and secondary sources. Many students including you struggle with Document Based Questions which has students analyze multiple documents and then answer one question in the form of an essay using the documents as evidence.
While I do think that you should work on his note taking skills, I have noticed a trend. When you take the notes and do the homework, for the most part you do well. You did not turn in the notes for some of the reading quizzes with your binder checks which tells me you did not complete them. It seems you struggle with your binder checks because many of the items are homework and you don’t complete it.