<p>Hey guys,
So my school really doesn't offer very many AP's.</p>
<p>The classes I did/will take in high school were/are:
Junior Year
AP Biology(5)</p>
<p>Senior Year
AP Gov
AP Lit
AP Calc AB</p>
<p>The two courses I would consider self-studying(either just one or both) would be AP Human Geography and AP Psychology. So I have a couple questions:</p>
<p>How do you self-study for AP's? Do you just buy a textbook and do the work? How do you know what textbook to buy?</p>
<p>Also with regards to Human Geo and Psych, how easy are these two particular subjects to self-study and how easy are they to get 4s/5s on(particularly 5s) if you self-study.</p>
<p>This year I self studied for AP Chem and got a 5 on the exam. Here’s how I did it:</p>
<p>1) I got the PR for Chem and started studying back in December. Start studying early so there’s no big rush near the end. You don’t have to buy a textbook, unless you think it will help you understand the material better.
2) A big thing you can do is look for previous MC and FRQs for your subject and go over them. Practice makes perfect - when you have to do the real thing, you’ll already have some experience.</p>
<p>You mainly study review books and test yourself on old APs/review book answers. Check out the AP forums for the best review books. You’ll realize that self studying is MUCH harder than learning in a classroom.</p>
<p>And from what I heard about those two subjects, you can probably self-study them. I’ve heard of several people studying for those classes in the past.</p>
<p>I’d probably only do one. I have a full year study hall and in order for me to get the AP Scholar of Distinction I need to self study one exam(and get at least a 3). (This is assuming I can score at least 3s/4s on most of the exams for the classes I’m taking next year).
So if I had to choose one of the two, which do you think I should do? I would probably lean more towards psychology just because I think more colleges give credit for it than Human Geo. Both subjects are decently interesting to me, but I will be majoring in either Biology or some type of Business. </p>
<p>Is economics an easy or possible class to self-study for? When you study, do you just study for either macro or micro or both?</p>
<p>I bought Barrons review book for Psychology and the accompany flashcards. I read the bok cover to cover 3-times and then I memorized all the flashcards.</p>
<p>Just an advice for Human Geography: it’s not THAT easy as many people claim (in other threads), at least for me personally. I skimmed PR a month before the exam, and only got a 4 on the exam. The exam is very “random”, for the lack of a better word. While it does not have difficult concepts, it takes some time to consolidate all the information and is also somewhat long of a read. But in retrospect, I didn’t not find the subject very interesting.
If you choose one, definitely choose psychology, though I think taking both shouldn’t be too big of an hassle. They usually require no more than a month or two to study for.</p>
I self-studied AP Psych this year, on top of 4 APs at school. I got the 5 Steps to a 5 review book, Barron’s flashcards, and a textbook I got from a teacher at school, which the teacher said was a really good book. I read the book over the summer, and then just used the Barron’s and 5 Steps review stuff during the year for the exam.</p>
<p>My textbook was: </p>
<p>Morris, Charles G., and Albert A. Maisto. Psychology: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. Print. </p>
<p>When people ask about AP Psych self-study textbooks, I’m so glad I kept a MS Word document with all the citations for all my AP textbooks so I can just copy/paste that right there!!!</p>
<p>
AP Psych is easy. I haven’t taken Human Geo, but I’ve heard it’s very easy to self it also. I got a 5, like I said with 4 more APs at school. All I did was read the textbook once over the summer, read through the prep book and highlight stuff at the end of the summer. Then, review the prep book and flashcards during Christmas break, spring break, Easter break, and the weekend before the test. It’s an easy test; came out of it sure that I had a 4 or 5.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no need to get a textbook for Human geography. Just get Princeton review (or Barron’s if you want, I preferred PR though) and do all the practice tests you can. (I honestly never actually did any of the FRQ’s, but you should try doing at least a couple)</p>
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<p>Very true. There were quite a few MC questions that you just wouldn’t find in any prep book, and I seriously doubt the likeliness of any textbook having them. (pop. density question w/ south¢ral American counties question for example)</p>
<p>I self studied AP Psych too actually. Definitely one of the easier AP classes and quite an easy one to self study. What I did was got the Barrons review book for it as well as the notecards. The notecards don’t contain anything extra from what’s contained in the book; just categorized to provide the definition and examples of the word I believe. Nevertheless, I thought it was pretty helpful to review all the terms. </p>
<p>The benefit (and possibly downfall) to self studying is going at your own pace. Some are responsible and follow a balanced schedule until the exam. Others like me, for instance, bought the book in December, didn’t start studying till April, and crammed all in one month. I ended up getting a 5.</p>
<p>My point is, self studying is definitely possible, and it’s all up to your own will. Good luck and feel free to pm if you have any more questions for self studying.</p>
<p>I totally agree with zmatrix… Ap human geo is def not THAT easy! And since it sounds like uve never self studied before, it wud be highly preferrable to self study psychology rather than human geo! If u have more time, then totally do human geo as well, but don’t overburden urself (u know urself- will u be able to do both?) I have taken both psych and human geo and as mentioned above, psych is regarded more highly than human geo! I wish u much luck, and I hope the helped!! :)</p>