<p>5 on the exam, 800 on the SAT II test I’m so happy :). @Hawkace is history naturally your thing? I can’t think of why you did so poorly on the SAT II test</p>
<p>I have no freakin clue. I’m retaking it in the fall. @IlariaCaelestis </p>
<p>5 on the exam, all that hard work paid off.</p>
<p>Yay, I got a 5. :)</p>
<p>If there’s one class which you can sleep through and still get a 5 on the test, it’s APUSH.</p>
<p>@redisthenewblack I would disagree with that, it really depends on how hard your high school APUSh class is and how naturally good you are at history. At my school if up don’t pay attention in APUSH and you’re not a natural there’s no way you’ll get anything more than a 3.</p>
<p>@redisthenewblack Sounds like you’re just taking a good teacher for granted. This was the second time my teacher ever taught the class, and his first time half the class got 1s. All he did was lecture a little bit and then we did nothing for the rest of the class. Not only that, but our APUSH class was 4 and a half months long. Every weekend I had to read Enduring Vision, and I ended up reading about 600 pages of that awful book. In addition to that, I read through my AMSCO review book twice.</p>
<p>I got a 4. </p>
<p>@redisthenewblack APUSH at my school is taught quite badly; last year over 500 students took the class and only 6 got 5s. So I’d say at least a fair amount of effort is necessary to score well on the test.</p>
<p>@IlariaCaelestis
@BassGuitar
@kirstr </p>
<p>First of all, if you’re not a “natural” at history, then you shouldn’t be taking APUSH in the first place. Second of all, half the test is just general knowledge which you should know before stepping foot into the class. Since you are an AP student, you should know all of that material. </p>
<p>You people who used all of those additional study material and whatnot are studying aimlessly. The teaching at my school isn’t even that good. Most students get 3s. 4s and 5s are pretty rare. Pretty much all you need to succeed on your test is the class book (skim it, DO NOT take complex notes and read into the book and tame a long time, you will just overcomplicate everything.Skim through the 5 Steps to a 5 book the day before the test and do the Rapid Review(shouls take you no more than an hour). All of that should cover about 25% of the material on the test.</p>
<p>You can work through the rest of the tests, particularly most of the tricky quesrions just by employin g a combination of good test taking strategies and what you know/have learned. Don’t overcomplicate the questions. Look for NOTs and EXCEPTs. If there’s one answer which looks like the one you wanted all along, pick it and don’t waste time reading any of the other answers. </p>
<p>I only got a B in the class because I didn’t do the readings and I didn’t take the book notes, and my teacher had a stupid policy where the generous curves on tests would not be awarded to students who didn’t do the crap ton of work. I didn’t feed into that BS, but I still got As and Be on the tests before the curves (sometimes they were as much as 40%). Could I have gone for that A? Definitely? But why should I have to do a mountain of work when I can apply common sense, good test taking strategies, and general knowledge to land me decent grades?</p>
<p>Most people who think APUSH is hard really don’t “get it”. You shouldn’t treat APUSH like any other class. It requires a myriad of specialized skills.</p>
<p>@redisthenewblack If the the majority of APUSH students at your school are scoring 3s, that’s at the very least average teaching. Heck, if you’re teacher was even assigning work, yours was a step ahead of mine! I didn’t have to spend 4 hours every weekend reading through my textbook on the material covered that weekend, and spend additional time before the tests reading AMSCO and watching Crash Course videos. Everyone else in my class just went off our teacher’s lackluster lectures and squeaked by with Bs. APUSH is different than classes like Calculus and Physics where doing well is about understanding and logical deduction. Yeah there’s some of that, but it really is just frequent exposure to get that rote memory down, that’s all. And the best way to achieve frequent exposure is to to assign homework.</p>
<p>Like I said, after a 4 month long class with a terrible teacher, I am grateful and lucky for my 4!</p>
<p>And from my experience, APUSH truly is the mother of all social science APs. The sheer amount of content that I had to learn in that short period of time… jesus. And I think it’s the only history AP that mimics a year long college course. </p>
<p>@redisthenewblack Frankly, your post comes off sounding just a tad bit arrogant and silly. I don’t know if you intended it to be that way, but it doesn’t come off well.</p>
<p>Firstly, just because your not a “natural” is history doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking APUSH. If we applied your logic then only 2 or 3 of the students in my school would be taking the class. Just because you’re not a natural in something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the class. I’m not a natural by any means in math, yet I continue to take high level math classes and do well on them because I work my fanny off. </p>
<p>Your claim that half the test is general knowledge isn’t so sound either. When I walked into my APUSH class I already knew a fair amount partly because a previous pre-IB course at my old school and partly because I’m a lover of all things history. However, I soon found that if I had walked into the AP exam with just that I wouldn’t have done well. In addition, how many people so you think have a general knowledge about Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring? Few to none. I was fortunate to have a good APUSH teacher whose teaching and textbook she provided mirrored the test to a T.</p>
<p>As for study strategies everyone’s method is different. Just because some people use prep books and other study materials doesn’t mean they’re wasting their time. The whole point of a strategy is what works for you as an individual. My study strategy for the AP exam was to basically do one old practice MC test, look over some essay topics, and brush up on the 13-15 amendments. Basically nothing. Yet, I wouldn’t recommend doing this to anyone else because everyone is different.</p>
<p>Lastly, I don’t know why you didn’t do any of the readings or the notes. As the poster above me pointed out homework is actually very beneficial for the APUSH exam in that it provides frequent exposure to improve rote memory. Maybe you’re like me and you just absorb things and remember them. I don’t know. But even I found reading the book and doing notes to be very helpful. Plus, If I hadn’t I would have gotten a C and not a A as My class had quizzes on the readings every other day. Your “crap ton of work” just sounds like any APUSH students work load which is fair because as the poster above me said APUSH is the “mother of all social sciences”. You might have gotten a 5, but it’s very possible you would have benefited greatly from doing the work. You also come off just a tiny bit lazy by not doing your “crap ton of work” and thereby indirectly insult the students who did work hard for their A. </p>
<p>Sorry for the long post, and if you didn’t mean to come off as I described in the post above then I humbly apologize. It’s harder to read emotions in internet text than it is in real life. </p>
<p>@IlariaCaelestis I second all of that. </p>
<p>This Apush history test was the easiest test i have taken i got a five and only got a 660 on the subject test…</p>
<p>Got a 780 on the subject test and 5 on ap exam 
</p>
<p>@redisthenewblack Even if it means more unneeded work, why didn’t you try to get that “A”? Granted, the work may have been useless but at the end of the day, its your GPA that is brought down by the “B.”</p>
<p>Finished APUSH this last year with an A in the class and a 5 on AP exam. Generally used WikiNotes [too lazy to actually read American Pageant (although actually reading the textbook can be very helpful)] and YouTube (specifically John Green and <strong>Adam Norris’ videos</strong>) to actually learn the history. Also know how to write essays: good thesis and good argumentation amongst other things. Essay writing is crucial in APUSH for both in-class and AP exam DBQs/FRQs. Good luck!</p>
<p>I got a 5 on the exam, and I didn’t even write the 1st FRQ essay (I ran out of time, and scrawled 1-3 sentences in the final 2 minutes)!! But hey, it was my last exam. I got a 780 on the subject test (I studied pretty hard for the subject test, but didn’t really get a chance to study for the AP other than attending my teacher’s review session), and had an A- in the class.
My tips:
-studying for class tests: apnotes.net! If you have the time, read the textbook section after reading AP notes. I would actually stay away from the Adam Norris. only use the John Green if you know the material REALLY well or plan to use additional resources.
-studying for standardized tests: focus on key terms/people/events/laws. take practice tests and make lists, or fill out the list in your review book if it has one (Princeton review does).
-essays: avoid summary, focus on analysis. Always have the question/prompt in mind to prevent straying. Have a strong, insightful thesis sentence/statement and build on it with each paragraph. </p>
<p>If you’re taking APUSH in 2014, here’s a few basic guidelines.</p>
<ol>
<li>This is a hilariously easy course. I barely consider it an AP. If you’re decently intelligent you WILL get a 4/5 on the exam WITHOUT any out-of-class studying.</li>
<li>Your teacher will either be good (lenient, doesn’t assign too much work for this easy class), or horrible (weekly DBQs + chapter outlines)</li>
<li>If you’re content with a 4, and you’re not stupid, you don’t need to study. At all. </li>
<li>If your school ends in July, you’re going to be screwed out of a couple questions simply because you haven’t even touched the subject yet.</li>
</ol>
<p>I got a 4 on the AP exam without studying and simply paying attention in class. I missed like 5-10 of the outlines too.</p>
<p>but… but… you scored a 4?</p>
<p>I feel like the exam was curved really generously this year. I almost certainly got a 0 on one FRQ, with a 5-6 on the other, and still got a 5. Anybody else get way higher score than expected?</p>
<p>I thought the MC was really easy though (Got 800 on Subject Test like a week before the AP exam, and my teacher gave me every released exam to use for studying.) #crittendencompromise</p>
<p>BTW, REA is THE APUSH Bible. The best ~$10 I’ve ever spent, bar none.</p>