<p>So I'm a sophomore signed up for APUSH next year. I didn't take AP Euro this year like a lot of kids because I moved and my schedule got messed up so I ended up in freshman history. </p>
<p>Anyways, my teacher basically said we willneed to know every single detail of the chapter for the tests (which will cover 2-3 chapters, but we will have a test on the first five chapters the first week of school) I usually use flashcards for dates/numbers but is that really effective for that amount of info?</p>
<p>You do not need to know dates or numbers for the AP exam, other than dates that are important enough that you probably already know them and general sequences of events.</p>
<p>In my APUSH class we had chronology quizzes that were matching - a 50 year period to an event, 10 periods.</p>
<p>You also don’t need to know every detail to do well on the test, although you might for class tests. </p>
<p>For the AP test, you will not need to know too many specific details (even the essays, if you know what generally happened and some specific details, the graders are specifically instructed not to penalize you for some wrong information - writing a good, convincing essay in which you prove a point is much more important).</p>
<p>Of course, for the class, take all that information and throw it out the window. I can’t help you much with that if your teacher doesn’t teach the same way mine did (mine is, was and will be a grader - he’s grading essays this week and last week, he has gone many times in the past and he plans to do it future years.).</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I’m not worried about the actual AP test, 97% of APUSH students pass it. My school is notorious for it’s over the top testing in all classes, especially APs </p>
<p>Mine won’t be a grader, all of the tests are multiple choice & short answer, with a DBQ every other week. I’m sorta freaking out/questioning taking the class</p>
<p>I crammed Direct Hits the week before the test (including everything from Reconstruction-present the night before) and I’m pretty confident about a 5.</p>
<p>That’s exactly how my class was! We had a test on the first 6 chapters the second week of school; I think it was to weed the stragglers out. Then we eased it down to 2-3 chapters per week.</p>
<p>APUSH is a lot of studying but it all pays off. While you can use review books to study for the AP Exam, they don’t cover everything, and some questions on the AP Exam can only be answered based on what you remember from throughout the year. I reccomend studying between 60 to 90 minutes each day, pace yourself. Try to read each chapter at least twice before the test, and re-read them all the night before (a 3rd time). If you want, I have an APUSH study guide I can email you :)</p>
<p>My school gave us all the Princeton Review AP books and I only looked over that and got a 4. The test wasn’t that bad but I’m generally terrible on multiple choice. However my DBQ and essays were excellent.</p>
<p>My class did absolutely NOTHING. Like really, he gave us our tests (10MC) a week ahead of time, and we ‘read’ the AMSCO book. </p>
<p>To study, I got the DH book the day before the test, and read it through. I got a 4, so if you have a decent class + DH you’ll get a 5 for sure :)</p>
<p>My class had to define 20-40 terms each chapter and describe why each was important. The latter part is a bit extraneous, but I think defining and writing about various terms does help to gain a command of such a large volume of information. I would read every chapter and highlight the terms as I came across them, and then I went back to write everything out. It takes a lot of time, but you’re going over all of the important info twice before even covering it in class.</p>
<p>We wrote a DBQ every chapter, did 6 AP practice tests, and took around 12 class tests, so I wrote about 60 AP-style essays by the end of the year. Doing so many essays and not wanting to spend too much time on them helped me with being able to address any prompt quickly, call to mind relevant information, write a coherent thesis, and decide on my essay’s organization.</p>
<p>As for your teacher’s tests, it’s impossible to know every detail in the book, but I would doubt that he really will test that rigorously. How do people usually do in the class? If you’re fairly bright and put in a lot of effort in reading and note-taking, you will probably do better than the majority.</p>
<p>Okay kids. First, calm the eff down.
Studying for Aps is half pointless.
And you are all saying “I didn’t study,” or “I studied tons.” It’s case specific.
So yeah. If you can memorize some stuff it helps, but it’s not about matching a date to a time and place. It’s about getting the big picture of how things fit together and set off other events and how politics and policy affects economics, social stuff all that garbage.
They just throw in a few obscure and hard questions for giggles.
For APUSH I studied the first 30 pages of the newman book (IMO not very helpful unless you go through and spend tons of time taking notes or whatever because if you read it through thats like 25 hours of time to retain little to no info). I didn’t get my AP score yet, but for my subject test I got a 750 and the only difference was that it was a month later so I forgot even more stuff (APUSH was first semester) and I took 2 hours and crammed a 450 term list the night before.
Other kids are like mega nerds and get 800s and 2400s and that crap and take college stuff whatever and they get 4s/650s/700s. Its cuz they don’t know how to learn and link stuff together and instead memorize stupid terms.</p>
<p>Basically, forgo APUSH and instead watch the history channel (if its not the ufo/prophecy/armageddon/conspiracy crap). Its hard to learn specifically for the test.</p>
<p>For the class? Paid attention. Our book was the American Pageant. Read maybe the first chapter, then never picked it up again. For the first semester our history teacher didn’t know Portugal was a part of Europe and basically the class was taught by those who read the textbook. Second semester the teacher switched and was really awesome at powerpoints so I learned a lot more post-Civil War. For chapter tests, all I did was print out the AP notes chapter the morning of and read through it in first period.
I purchased the AMSCO book since that’s the one everyone recommends, planned to read it, ended up not. For the AP exam all I did was read the Crash Course book many times the two nights before the exam. I got a 5. Which was really cool because we never got to Nixon, who the DBQ was on, and literally all that I wrote about him on that essay was the stuff I knew from Crash Course. </p>
<p>If you aren’t a huge slacker that manages to pull off the crap I do, then I advise to read the textbook and get the AMSCO book and read that too if you really want it. Do all your class work (ours was really only vocab and discussion questions for every chapter, then a test), don’t nod off during lectures, take notes. Whatever it is that works for you.</p>
</p>