<p>I am skipping a level to move into the AP level during my upcoming junior year. What should I do to prepare? I really want that 5. I am a nonnative speaker.</p>
<p>Ah, I did the same thing! (however, be warned: I do not believe I scored a 5)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Daily immersion in the language. This is very important. Aim to read newspaper articles, watch television, or listen to the radio in Spanish. You’ll be able to acquaint yourself with different writing styles, vocabulary, and accents.</p></li>
<li><p>Writing Practice. I encourage you to write essays as frequently as possible, because you will be able to introduce yourself to more complex modes of grammatical construction before you try them out verbally.</p></li>
<li><p>Speaking. Throughout my year in Spanish AP, I spoke to whatever I could find: fruits, walls, teddy bears, and random trees. It helps to give you confidence and to acclimate yourself to the sound of the language. When I got the opportunity, I spoke with native speakers. I’ve also found that speaking Spanish works wonders for accents (if you sometimes have trouble placing them, that is).</p></li>
<li><p>Test-Taking Practice. Take sample exams throughout the year. Unfortunately, I did not do this, much to my detriment, but it does work very well.</p></li>
<li><p>Enjoy yourself. Go out to a restaurant sometime and see how much you understand on the menu. Watch a movie in Spanish. Read a sappy romance novel. Try to find a way to integrate your interests into the language - I enjoy learning about hot sauce and peppers, and read scores of article upon those subjects in Spanish.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You did all this and still didn’t earn a 5? D:</p>
<p>ksarmand gives good advice. Practice, practice, practice, even if it’s just talking to your cat in Spanish. I’m expecting a 3/4 on the test, and I wish that I had practiced more.
Watch Spanish films/TV (Pan’s Labyrinth is an awesome movie). Definitely make sure that you’re solid on grammar/verb tenses/etc.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about skipping a level…I did the same thing without much difficulty. I think that regardless of whether you’ve had 3 or 4 years of Spanish, it’s more important that you are willing to work hard. I found myself ahead of some of the individuals who had been taking Spanish for a year longer than I had.</p>
<p>You should be warned that it is very difficult to get a 5 if you are not a native speaker, but you should still be able to pass if you work hard. If you don’t do well in Language for some reason, you could take AP Spanish Lit your senior year and try for a better score (if your school offers it).</p>
<p>Buena suerte.</p>
<p>@stoompy312: No, I did not follow the advice I gave you, which is why I do not expect a 5. 
However, I did skip a level of Spanish to take AP.</p>
<p>Make sure you have a good teacher. </p>
<p>Practice speaking.</p>
<p>Take notes to a quick speaker.</p>
<p>As a nonnative speaker, it’s pretty tough to get a 5. Are you aiming for a 5 for credit purposes, or personal satisfaction?</p>
<p>First, familiarize yourself with the exam structure because there are several different sections. Some will come super easily to you (for most non-native speakers in my class, essay and letter writing were by far the easiest) and you should brush up on them but really focus on the things that you’re not that great at. </p>
<p>Listening/speaking portions were more difficult. For listening, practice listening to FAST speech. At this point in your Spanish career it should be easy to listen to slower speech and you should understand nearly completely. The speech on the AP exam can be a little quick, and sometimes tricky accents are in there. Our teacher would play news video clips from sites like BBC Mundo. If you do that often, I think it’ll help.</p>
<p>Speaking portion… Well, one part is easy if you know how to do it, the other just needs a lot of practice for some people. The easy one is the ‘presentation’ style section. I used to take my planning period and write my ENTIRE speech, then just read it. Some people don’t like doing this but it always worked for me. This method effectively turns it into another writing portion (easy!) except you can read it aloud! The conversation part gets tricky if the prompting voice asks you a question you previously answered and you find yourself repeating what you already said… It’s hit or miss. Practice and I’m sure it can be perfected, I was just lazy in Spanish…</p>
<p>And then there’s the reading portion. The way it was this year, at least, was that half of the passages were article style/nonfiction, and the other half were kind of like passages from novels. The article ones, for most of us in my class at least, were easy to understand. The novel-esque passages… Ugh don’t even get me started. They should be your focus in your reading practice. </p>
<p>Skipping a level shouldn’t matter. To me, Spanish 1 is your foundation, Spanish 2 builds on it, Spanish 3 you learn like one thing, and Spanish 4 is just monotonous rehashing of crap you already know. Then you get to AP and it’s time for real business!</p>
<p>But ABOVE ALL! Be motivated, practice, write, speak, listen. I was lazy and trying harder would have helped me on the exam… The actual class was easy to skate by with minimal effort but the exam asks more of you.</p>
<p>“Spanish 3 you learn like one thing”</p>
<p>What does that mean?</p>
<p>That means Spanish 3 is just Spanish 2 plus the subjunctive tense. Everything else is identical.</p>
<p>^All of the above advice is very good- constant immersion in the language is important.
By skipping, just make sure your grammar is really, really solid.
Good luck.</p>