<p>How many of you had made a pact after cramming for Ap's at the last minute this year that next year you would study from the beggining and avoid cramming next year? ...I make this kind of pact every year, somehow I fail...</p>
<p>Well, I told myself that I would do my self-studying for government and politics from summer till christmas, and then do european history form christmas to may. Somehow, it never happened 
ended up juggling both of them for the past 2 or 3 months along with all of my other school work… still pretty confident I did well though</p>
<p>Um…no. I will never make promises that I can’t fulfill. I just do what I want and what I can.</p>
<p>I never even thought about preparing for AP’s from the beginning so I guess I’ll try it next year, because studying for AP Bio in 2 days is a bit much for me!</p>
<p>Cramming is good.</p>
<p>Well this is my first year of APs, so I wasn’t too worried. I started preparing three weeks ago, reading a bit each day, but then I stopped. I just now started again, and my first exam is on Monday. :p</p>
<p>Next year, I’m going to start my review in early-to-mid March, and pace myself until the exams. I took two APs this year and am fretting about cramming; next year I’m taking four, so I really do need to be better prepared next time. </p>
<p>I don’t normally fulfill my goals like this, but this is something rather important… so I will try my best to stick to my word next year! :p</p>
<p>I always tell myself that I’ll plan ahead… I always procrastinate. I’m not telling myself this next year because I’m not too concerned about my senior year scores (if I get scores to place out of things, great, if not, great)…</p>
<p>Last year I had one AP: Euro History. This year I have 4: US History, Calc, German, and Environmental Science. Last year, I spent like 3 weeks studying for just one exam. After it was over, I was pretty positive I had gotten a 4. I was ecstatic when I received my 5. This year, I did not study for any of my exams. Sure, we did a lot of reviewing in the individual classes, but I did not go home on the weekends and read the review books. For German, I knew I would do well on the multiple choice and suck at speaking. There was nothing I could do to change that a week before the exam. Practicing was not going to help me. I probably got a 4 on my German exam. As far as the others I have taken so far, I’m pretty confident I got 5s on Calc and APUS. Lesson of my story: don’t freak out about the exams. Have confidence with your teachers that they are doing their jobs correctly. I feel so much better this year about everything and I’m not constantly studying even though I have 3 more APs than I had last year.</p>
<p>^I know exactly what you mean, UVAhopeful. Last year, I had 3 exams (Bio, World History, and a Environmental Science self-study), and I was soooo worried. Gave up my whole social life for a month before the exams. This year, I’m taking 6, and 2 of them just flew by last week without me even realizing that it was already May. I just crammed the night before each of those rather than a month long preparation.</p>
<p>are you kidding? i didn’t really study this year, and next year will be even worse. Seeing as i’ll be a senior, i’ll have to motivate myself to even show up to the exams.</p>
<p>I did make the pact and I kept it. :)</p>
<p>Although I am pretty sure I still made a 1 on Calc.</p>
<p>I made a pact, kept it…but even though I started early, I lost most of the time to other activities. Two years ago, I took one AP and studied 3-4 weeks straight for it. Last year I took two, and studied for roughly 2 weekes on-off for one, and two days for the other. I got the same score on all three of them…</p>
<p>Last year, I took my first AP exam, AP Compsci. I didn’t study for it at all. The only thing I did was pay attention in class (sometimes) and stay after school for a 4-hour tutoring session the day before the test. I managed to do decent on it, so after that, I kinda took my AP tests for granted. I am taking 3 AP tests next week- Music Theory, World History, and Human Geography, and I’m soooooooo cursing my horrible decision not to study earlier, and not to at least read my textbooks for class assignments and such. I have 5-6 days to read the entire Human Geography and World History textbook. I cannot do this next year, or I will probably implode. Haha, even though I’m saying this now, I so bet that I’m going to repeat this cycle of procrastination… ohhhhh…</p>
<p>I have, because I didn’t really know what self-studying APs was like until now and I thought I could just get by with fourth-quarter studying. Maybe I still can, but definitely not without becoming extremely stressed.
I will definitely start earlier - this summer, in fact. Should be much easier even though I will have more AP tests to study for. And I do not intend to break this “pact” - I usually have terrible self-discipline, but when it comes to studying, slightly better.</p>
<p>Agreed. I was in the same situation as you. I am starting to study now.</p>
<p>I would always tell myself that I would be more focused in studying than I was in the years before and that it would be worth it to do so. Now I am glad that I spent basically all of my time in April getting ready for the exams.</p>
<p>I am definitely not doing the same thing next year- I bought like 3 prep books for both Environmental Science and Human Geography which was kind of ridiculous. And I will be doing 5-7 AP tests next year, as opposed to 3 this year, so I will really need to not stress so much about the tests and just get down and study. This year, I got so anxious at times I couldn’t study very well. The exams went great, but I don’t think it will work with twice as many next year.</p>
<p>^I know what you mean about too many prep books. I checked out every prep book available at the library and didn’t even look in some of them. I also felt the tests went well. I guess it was better to have more resources than needed instead of too few.</p>