Should I take regular US history or APUSH?

Test Preparation AP History & Social Sciences
1

History is my worst subject, so I’m not so sure. I have not previously taken any AP courses, and am planning to take AP Bio and BC Calc next year (junior year).

My performance in history classes tends to vary depending on the teacher and the course material/structure. For instance, in my freshmen year (World Civs) I got an A-, but this year (in Western Civ) I have a pretty solid A so far. I think the difference between these two years is: 1) World Civs jumped to different places every unit; there wasn’t much connection between the topics while in Western Civ, it’s pretty much one continuous history. 2) My Western Civ teacher grades more loosely (and more reasonably). 3) My World Civ teacher seemed to care more about the details while my Western Civ teacher cares more about cause and effect and overlying themes in history. Also, in pretty much everyone’s opinion at my school, World Civ was the hardest freshmen class (it was also my first exposure to non-multiple choice [or similar form] questions, as I switched from a public school to a private school.) My only past experience with US history is 8th grade US History, which is probably the only year that I’ve gotten an A+ in history (though this might have partially been due to copious amounts of extra credit).

My main concerns are maintaining my 4.0 (unweighted) GPA and getting a 4/5 on the exam. Much of the purpose of taking APUSH would be for the college record, and the scores are generally pretty good at my school (about 70% 5’s.) However, I’m worried about the workload, as I know that BC Calc and AP Bio, though they are my strongest subjects, have a pretty big workload and are two of the harder APs. I also don’t have much free time after school right now without even taking AP’s.

In addition to all of these, my school is tougher on grading than most schools–though, luckily, both an A and and A+ count as a 4.0. Almost all nonAP courses are considered honors courses.

The other classes I plan to take are: (aforementioned) BC Calc, AP Bio, American Literature, Spanish 4, Drawing III(1st semester), and Anatomy and Physiology (2nd semester).

I have also heard that regular US history at my school is painfully easy.

Any thoughts?

2

For AP US History:

I mean I barely studied regularly/payed attention and managed to pull an 82 first quarter and an 81 second quarter (expected to increase by a few points once he enters the revisions) and an 80 on the midterm.

Well that’s because most of our grade would usually be a DBQ and I’d just look up other DBQ essays online and research stuff in general (not to plagiarize, but to learn the content necessary and get some ideas) to write my essay (and usually pull an 82-85).

And for quizzes/tests, I crammed in the last two days and searched up all the terms listed on the study guide and maybe read a bit of the text book. I remember I got a 71 on the test and a 68 on the multiple choice section of the midterm (compensated by getting an 88 on the essay).

So yeah, I mean you can hardly do anything and just cram in the last couple days before a major assessment and still do okay.

But I’d recommend not doing so of course (and I am going to get my act together as well) because it was stressful as fuck (and honestly taking the midterm was painful when I had no idea what the answer was on have the questions - I actually thought I failed the multiple choice initially after taking it) and you can do a lot better if you just keep up.