I am considering taking the US History subject test in October’15. As an international, I don’t know much about the American history and I think that the US history test will help my application. Also it would be great to know the history of the country where I’ll be going for college. Which prep books do you recommend and what strategy should I follow? How should my approach be? Thank you.
I recently took the US History SAT exam, so I have a lot of pointers.
Books: I recommend three books, in this order;
- The Insiders Complete Guide to APUSH by Larry Krieger - This book is a must! I personally loved this book, and it is perfect for SAT even if the title says it’s for SAT. He gives great pointers for SAT and AP, and the explanations are amazing.
- Barron’s - This book is very detail oriented, and while I got a bit bored, it was good for the exam. The practice tests are harder than the actual exam, but are considerably realistic.
- Kaplan - I have mixed reviews for this book. I really liked the style, in which it was like summarizing all of the information. This is good for after reading the first two. My only problem was that the practice tests were either too easy or unrealistic, but it is good for testing information. Don’t rely on the practice tests though.
Strategies:
- Be mindful of time. Have a specific plan set up. For me, I planned to finish the first thirty questions in the first twenty minutes, the next thirty in the next twenty minutes, and the last thirty in the last twenty minutes. I ended up finishing early, but it’s good to have a time limit to stick by. You should also try to finish the first thirty earlier, because they are the easiest. It gives you an ample amount of time to spend on the harder questions.
- Eliminate as many answer choices as possible. If even one word of the answer is incorrect, cross it out immediately. You’ll notice that in the first answer, the first part is correct, and the second part isn’t. So if you’re not paying attention, you’ll make a mistake that could’ve been avoided.
- Read the question carefully. I can not stress this point. SO many questions were worded in a way that if you did not read it concisely, you would get it wrong. There are traps.
- If you have no idea, or can’t eliminate two or more answers, SKIP IT. I skipped five questions on my exam, and while I did not get my scores yet, I’m confident in a 750+, maybe even 780+. The curve for US History is extremely lenient. This is because you are not expected to know every single thing on there. Those five I skipped, I either had no idea or I couldn’t chose between my non-eliminated answers.
- Think of the answer before you read the answers. I’m not sure if this works for everyone, but I like to read the question, think of the answer in my head, and then read the choices. This may not work for you, but I found it helped my from carelessly choosing incorrect or partially correct answers.
- Study extensively. Don’t spend only two weeks studying, especially if you have little background knowledge.
- Know your time periods and trends. Here’s an example:
The 1920s: Roaring Twenties/Jazz Age/Flappers/Red Scare/Margin Buying/Underconsumption and Overproduction/Hard time for farmers/Mainly Republican power/The Lost Generation
You’ll find that the more obvious ones, like the roaring twenties and flappers will have less questions than the others, mainly because they know that the majority of us will know the generalizations of the time period. Knowing time periods and trends help tremendously on questions, and even on tables and graphs that use dates. - Know the literature/music/art, but not too much. You don’t need to memorize every single book, the author, the year of publication, and every single detail about it. But you should know the most important (Larry Krieger’s book is perfect for this) and what types of books/art came out at specific time periods.
That’s all I can think of for now! Good Luck 