I didn’t take my studying seriously enough for AP Bio last year, and got a 3. Disappointing – as a STEM person, it made me really upset. I’m retaking it this year in the hopes of a 5, and with a year of good knowledge behind my belt, I wanted some of your recommendations on what resources you used, etc? to get a 5! In general for any APs, how many times would you recommend taking a practice test and doing DBQs/FRQs? Like in the title, I want to be able to get all 5s for the APs listed above! (ESPECIALLY Calc BC!)
Thank you! If you have specific book recommendations, I love those as well
They just redesigned the test, so idk how much I can help for World History. The easiest thing to do is master DBQs. There’s a post somewhere on this site on how to get a 9. Mastering DBQs helps you master every other essay. PERSIA! (essay acronym) Get Ethel Wood’s Study guide and read it from beginning to end. It divided every part of World History into organized time periods. Also, understand that APWorld is an observation of patterns across geographical regions and time periods. DO memorize important dates/turning points, but realize that alone won’t get you to a 5. Each dynasty/city-state had a distinct personality. Kind of like Hetalia (awesome cartoon and low-key educational) Learn the Chinese dynasty song. Make a general timeline for each region. There’s always an essay on trade or money. Watch every crash course video. Watching one before the exam saved me on one of the essays. Don’t ignore Africa/South America. My textbook often briefly covered each, but both are equally likely to appear on the exam as other regions. Eventually, you should be able to compare/contrast any societies in the course.
@latiere For BC Calc do lots practice questions and practice FRQs! Those are the most helpful because they give you direct practice in what AP questions are going to be like and you can get used to their style. Is your teacher giving you practice MC questions? If not, ask her if she could provide you some (teachers usually should get access to stuff like past MC questions that aren’t publicly available). Do all of the FRQ’s available on the college board website. Remember that there’s both a calc and a non-calc section so make sure you know how to deal with both.
I don’t know how your BC class is taught, but we had little quizzes on every skill we learned and before the test it was helpful to go back through those quizzes and look closely at skills I didn’t do as well on and redo the problems or get more practice. Also notice the trends of the FRQ’s and see what topics appear most often or ask your teacher if there are certain topics that are for sure going to be on the FRQ (I forgot since I took BC two years ago).
