<p>Read until you get it.</p>
<p>Yeah. This means like, 20 times. I mean, seriously, during the year, I maintained a flat 90 (A’s, still!) mostly sleeping and cramming for tests. By AP exam time, I had the most jumbled knowledge of U.S. History ever and gaping holes in some parts (yeah, didn’t always read). The week before the exam, I read through 6 prepbooks, AMSCO 2-3 times in some places, and got 780 SAT II, 5 on the AP Exam. </p>
<p>Just read.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m not in the same situation as you - nor am I aware of the difficulty of your school’s particular APUSH class, but if it’s anything like mine was… it was challenging, but not impossible. My teacher was excellent and did anything he could to make sure we had a grasp of the material. There’s not a lot of mindless facts that you have to memorize. If you understand the general gist of a certain time period as you move along, you should be able to master the multiple choice without much effort (make sure you READ the textbook diligently, however) and make decent scores on DBQs and FRQs. I am a strong writer as it is, however, APUSH readers seem to be looking for key phrases and names and not necessarily amazing diction. </p>
<p>I studied like CRAZY for the exam this May, and I have to say that I might have studied a bit too much… but it was well worth it. I scored a 5. I probably would have scored a 5 even if I had studied less. It’s shocking how much your multiple choice skill really counts. We did a practice exam at school and my high multiple choice raw score was so high that I only needed to make 1’s on my essays to PASS the exam! I only needed to make 5’s on the essays to get a 5 (and that, to most people, is a crap score). </p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. It’s a fun, interesting class (if your teacher makes it this way) and it’s not hard to get the credit.</p>
<p>It’s so strange how people on here treat APUSH like it’s so hard. It was by far the easiest AP I’ve taken, and the SAT II was even easier.</p>
<p>Yeah, so like some of the other people here, I didn’t study for the APUSH exam and got a 5. Really, what you need to get down is the ability to “creatively” write nonfiction. If you can get a solid grasp of what happens in a certain era, you can then apply that knowledge to any essay on the exam by placing it in its proper era. Really, while learning specific dates and such will help a lot, learning how to extemporaneously write well is incredible.</p>
<p>Just make sure to pay attention in class, ask questions, etc… I agree with many other posters in that this was by far one of the easiest AP exams that I’ve taken. The hardest part was probably the multiple choice, but again, if you grasp the eras well then most of the MC questions will come pretty easily.</p>
<p>Oh, and make sure that you dont panic during the exam. Panicking and losing confidence will destroy your score. If you don’t get an MC question, mark it and move on quickly. Power through all of the questions that you can answer easily and then go back and concentrate on the ones that you missed. The DBQ’s are always easy, all of the information that you need is given to you anyway. Make sure that you pay attention to what the question is actually asking for, if you dont you’re essays will fall off topic and lose points due to tangentiality.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s basically my rant on the APUSH exam. Inspired in part by my draconian APUSH teacher who convinced all of us that we would fail if we didn’t spend every waking moment of our lives studying for the test (which I didn’t do).</p>
<p>You don’t even need to write that well. The MC and DBQ are easy enough that your essays can basically be jokes.</p>
<p>True, true; but writing well certainly does help.</p>
<p>My teacher was a joke, I read ZERO pages from the textbook all year, studied for 3 hours max the day before and got a 4. It is insanely easy.</p>
<p>internet notes really do work. That’s all I used, and I slept through the class every day.</p>
<p>if you are really adamant about receiving a 5 on the ap us test you should go to barnes and nobles and utilize their preparation books in advance. its free. i do it all the time.</p>
<p>^I really don’t think that’s necessary lol</p>
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<p>I was adamant about receiving a 5, and I wrote about Pocahontas.</p>