I’m currently taking a child psychology course associated with a local university.</p>
I am very interested in psychology and would like to self study for the AP exam. Do you think it would be possible to self study and get at least a 4? </p>
Any suggestions/tips? What books should I study from?</p>
Do you recommend Barron’s?</p>
Yes that is very possible, I used Barron’s and received a 5 so I would recommend that as well, it seemed that just about everything on the AP test was in Barrons. While there’s some on here that brag about reading through it the night before and getting a 5, you should probably read through it about 2 times, reading a chapter here and there throughout the year. Also, it might be helpful to try and do some free response questions that are posted on college board and read which responses get whatever amount of points. But you should not stress too much because you seem to love psychology (that helps a lot) and this is one of the easiest AP exams. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask and good luck!</p>
Thank you for your help! 
I’d like to start studying once I submit all my applications (so around mid-January). That way I have plenty of time to prepare.
How is the exam formatted? Are there any essays to write or is it all multiple choice?
Also, I heard learning the vocabulary/terms is very important?</p>
that sounds like a good plan. so it’s the shortest AP exam i believe, it has a 100 question multiple choice questions and you have 70 minutes to do them (which is plenty of time and 2/3 of the total score) and then there are 2 essay prompts which you have 50 minutes to do. These aren’t actually essays though, like you don’t need to write a thesis or anything, just write a complete sentence that answers the question (the barrons book will help you understand what you need to write). 1 of the prompts is usually on how to set up an expirement (not as complicated as it sounds). and yes vocab is very important, so maybe you could make flash cards of the highlighted words in barrons or however you learn vocab. is this your first AP test?</p>
Definitely possible. The Barron’s book is great except the only problem I had with it is the key terms (which psych is literally all focused on) are not bolded or underlined, merely italicized. Easy to get by with if you highlight the terms while reading. </p>
I read the Barron’s once over and got a 5 on the test. The ap exam questions are very simple and I think in some cases easier than the practice q’s in the book. The others are pretty similar, rarely harder than the practice q’s. Good luck!</p>