<p>Hey, i'm sure this post has been out there already, but i'm new to this forum, so bear with me. thanks. =]</p>
<p>So anyway, suppose i want to take ap gov or APES. i have this summer + next school year to learn the stuff. So do i basically buy a textbook, prep book, completely read the textbook, do the problems, and you're done? or is there a syllabus where you know what to learn, what to skip, do the problems, and you can take the test? maybe there is a site that helps you pace yourself?</p>
<p>Also, for all you people who already self studied aps, about how many hours per week did you guys spend on this stuff, assuming you have roughly 11 month to do this.</p>
<p>I self studied AP usgov, and it took me about 2 weeks to get it all down. I wouldnt say you need a textbook to self study usgov; you can if you want but I think all that extra effort simply isnt necessary. I just used (2) prep books and read through both of them 2 weeks before the test. </p>
<p>The prepbooks that I used to study for usgov are princeton review and cliffsnotes. PR is very simple and concise and has just about enough info to get you a 5, while cliffsnotes is bloated with info that may not even be tested on the ap exam; you can do just fine by going through princeton review only, but if you want to overprepare, use both (dont use cliffs alone - theres so much information in there and you can't differentiate between whats useful and whats useless).</p>
<p>I've never taken ES so im not sure about that. I heard it was an easy test though.</p>
<p>I started self-studying APES just 3 weeks before the exam.</p>
<p>Basically what I did was, I just talked to ppl about APES topics. Reviewed with them. Chatted on AIM review sessions on CC. This may be a practical way to study the week before the exam.</p>
<p>The biggest thing that helped me, though...
1) strong background knowledge on some of the topics
2) just going through the textbook, I spent on average an hour per day just going through it. Went over nearly 300 pages in 2 weeks, spending all my free time in class to read it.
3) going over the review tests, etc. that the APES teacher at our school provided.</p>
<p>APES is not easy but it's not overly difficult either.</p>
<p>I'm going to try an AP History, STATS and both governments this year through self study and I guess that I'll just go through the Princeton Review and Cliffsnote. Never knew about Cliffsnote so thanks ftc123! :)
But I need to order all my books on the internet to Australia and then get a friend from Australia to email it to PNG :(</p>
<p>thanks alot ftc! i'm planning to get some prep books this weekend on gov.
and wow wxmann, did you really self study an entire ap course in three WEEKS? that's alot of information to store in your head lol. how did you think you did on the exam?</p>