<p>So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to do better in school, because sophomore year is plain kicking my butt! I feel like I'm working a lot harder, but not getting the grades I want.</p>
<p>English is a trainwreck this year, with an impossible teacher who shouldn't even have a teaching degree. I'm getting a B+ in there (at least that's what I think, she is one of the slowest graders) and I'm trying for an A- but its nearly impossible with her.</p>
<p>Precalc is iffy. I got a B+ first marking period, and I was ****ed off. I consistently get As on my quizzes, As and Bs on the tests, do extra credit, but its the stupid independent chapter that cannonball my grade down! We're going to have a test soon on conic sections and I'm feeling decent going into it, but still worried. Anybody have any tips on independent chapters and how to attack them?</p>
<p>APUSH APUSH APUSH... my god I do not enjoy this class. I feel like I understand the material so well, but I'm always bad with the tests. My two tests this marking period are both Cs, and I thought I aced both of them. There's the occasional pop quiz bombings, but I really suffer from the tests. I exhaust myself studying for them and feel like I know the material, but then I go into the test and am caught off guard with some of the questions. Who has tips on how to study for APUSH?</p>
<p>So that's the end of my rant. I'm just looking for an escape from the sophomore slump and the last ditch efforts to raise my grades before midterms. If anybody can give any advice it would be greatly appreciated. Happy New Years too :D</p>
<p>I took APUSH last year and suffered from the same things you're going through now. But as i progressed through the year my study habits needed to change. To prepare for tests, i would suggest you go over your previous tests to see if there is a pattern in the questions that are asked. Also, if the tests are the same format then it'll make it a lot easier to know how to go about answering the questions. I also suggest that you buy a review book to constantly refresh your memory before the test and to put everything into context (i recommend REA). All in all, the more information you know going into the test, the less surprises that you will come across. I hope this helps.</p>
<p>I don't understand why so many schools give AP U.S History to sophomores. Here, you take it junior year unless you're on a 3 year graduation plan. I hear APUS is the most work, and at my school, it definitely is.</p>
<p>I'm sorry for your tough times. I'm a sophomore but only in Alg II H for math and AP World for history.</p>
<p>LMU10, we don't have AP World. We have this weird two year program thing, where we take APUSH over 2 years, and then take the AP Exam end of junior year.</p>
<p>Yeahhh APUSH kicked my butt last year as well. It was the hardest part of my sophomore year.
Time management (no procrastination, prioritizing..etc) was my main problem. It still is I guss! </p>
<p>Try to manage your time well, study for your quizzes and if needed, study for your tests a couple of days ahead of time. I liked the REA text as well..it was a good refresher before the tests..summarized everything well. Taking good notes in class helped me alot..since what the teacher emphasizes in class usually ends up on the test. If you constantly bomb quizzes..that can really hurt your grade. I'd go through and just READ over notes every other day for like 5 minutes or soemthing..doesnt take long, highlight some important stuff and at least you won't completely bomb the quizzes and it'll help you on the test as well. For tests...you have to know some specific terms and ideas of the time period. As well as what the presidents did and all that. Just understanding the general attitude of the section you're studying won't help you that much when the tests asks for specific names/terms/events. </p>
<p>Also, try to enjoy sophomore year!! Junior year just seems to get worse..I look back at sophomore year and as much as I hated it on some days when APUSH got craaazy, it's SO much better than this year. (Didn't have to worry about college prep, SATs, and didn't have many APs)</p>
<p>LMU, we have APUSH freshman year. What a way to enter high school, huh?</p>
<p>To the OP, in my APUSH class at least the questions weren't just rote memorization of the text. You needed to be able to make assumptions and generalizations based off of the facts. I'm not sure how you could really study that, though. Is your teacher nice? Maybe you could ask him/her for some study tips.</p>
<p>Wow. I don't understand this at all, lol.
I would never take APUSH freshman, sophomore year. I'm probably just going to take honors. It's probably the only class I'm going to avoid because of the horror stories I've heard in school about it, and here even people say its hard, lol.</p>
<p>I don't think AP world is that difficult at all. I have it this year, and compared to my friends in AP USH, they're class gets ten times the amount of work I do. The content difficulty may be the same, but the amount, AP US is greater.</p>
<p>at our school APWH and APUSH are the same during basically because we have the same teacher and during test days we have to write 3 essays ( change and cont., comparison, and DBQ) and do multiple choice. but i think that APWH is more difficult in terms of content</p>
<p>I took AP Euro sophomore year, and taking APUS now, i thought euro was a lot more work, and comparatively, apus is a lot easier, just my experience i guess</p>
<p>Yeah I'm taking AP EUropean History right now and the content is MUCH harder..
Not as familiar as APUSH</p>
<p>But the workload I had for APUSH was exhausting.</p>
<p>Haha...only 1 AP soph year (that's usually the most a soph takes..some people did 2 but they usually ended up with a B in the other AP class..and then failed the exam because they didn't have time for it!)</p>
<p>^ So that makes you wonder how us juniors and seniors can take 6-7 APs and do well on most/all of them. I mean, not much has changed from last year to this year, has it?</p>
<p>@ ajwchin--Yeah I don't know how that happens..it's not like I got that much smarter since last year or better at managing my time. In fact, I think I got worse! But I AM more experienced at cramming..
Hopefully AP exams won't be too bad. Last year was my first one so that was a learning experience for sure! This year...it'll be 2 weeks of torture.</p>
<p>Wow..we can't take AP Gov until like senior year. I might take Comparative Politics instead? It sounds harder than AP Gov though.</p>
<p>Yeah I'm in Comparative Politics too. But we have to it sophomore year because of IB. Because in 11-12 grade we do something like IB History I & II.</p>