Very heavy course load / Suggestions for summer prep?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I'm going to be a junior next year and I'm taking an extremely rigorous schedule. I know that it's going to be tough and I'm prepared for the challenge - it's exactly what I wanted. I want to give myself as much of a head start as I can, but I'm not sure which subject to focus on, what aspects are important, and how to go about the studying. So, please help me out? My schedule is:</p>

<p>AP European History
AP US History
AP Comparative Government
AP Calc AB
AP Biology
AP Language and Composition
(and Choir and Spanish honors, just to be thorough with my schedule :P)</p>

<p>Advice? Should I do flashcards? Read the textbooks? Buy any certain reviewbooks? Personal suggestions or advice for any of the subjects is welcome, haha.</p>

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<p>I haven’t had all of those classes, but I can say that for government, the flashcards actually helped me a lot, and that might be good preparation for next year if you decided to memorize some over the summer.</p>

<p>For calculus, if you want to prepare, it might be a good idea to make sure you know all of the concepts from pre-cal thoroughly and get a review book like the Princeton Review and maybe begin the first few chapters of that. </p>

<p>All you pretty much can do for English is read. I would suggest reading The Woman In White by Wilke Collins if you have time. It’s a good book, and I think it really tests and improves your reading abilities.</p>

<p>For US History, you might also want to study flashcards. There are a lot of names and events to remember in that subject, so it might be helpful to know some beforehand.</p>

<p>Hope this helps!</p>

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<p>Get the books from this list:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/201793-consolidated-book-suggestions-ap.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/201793-consolidated-book-suggestions-ap.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I have taken four of the six AP exams you will be taking. Here is my personal experience from the class and advice for each exam. It might be a lot more than you want to know, but take from it what you will:</p>

<p>AP European History: </p>

<p>My experience:</p>

<p>This was my first AP exam, which I took my sophomore year as my only AP that year. I had an old teacher who retired after his year of teaching us ended. All I really got out of that class was what I read from our textbook and a few points here and there from his lectures. We also did a fair amount of practice multiple choice questions. I briefly glanced through Modern European History by Viault a few times and I read The Princeton Review cover to cover. I took the practice AP exams out of PR and went into the AP exam not knowing what to expect. I scored a 3.</p>

<p>My advice: </p>

<p>Read your entire textbook and pay attention to the lectures. Get a lot of practice for the essays, using prompts from past exams (a good teacher will assign these in class). Get a good review book and do plenty of practice multiple choice questions under timed conditions.</p>

<p>AP US History: </p>

<p>My experience: </p>

<p>I had an extremely harsh teacher who assigned massive loads of homework on a weekly basis. I ended up spending many nights reading and writing out homework assignments. It paid off in the end because it really taught me how to study and remember details better than I had ever done before. Occasionally we were called on in class to test our retention of the material. Failure to recall facts led to massive point deductions from our homework assignments. I was called upon several times and was able to recall and answer everything he threw at me with perfect clarity. I was shocked at how much I knew, but I knew it was because I had put in the time and effort to do it. Others who did not do the homework (copied other students’ assignments) were not as prepared. I went into the AP exam very confident. I scored a 4.</p>

<p>My advice: </p>

<p>Read your entire textbook and take concise notes on the time periods in American history. Take note of the who, what, where, when, and why of specific events and historical figures, and why each is significant, as well as what change took place in American history as a result of that event’s occurrence/person’s actions. Get a good review book and take the practice multiple choice questions, in addition to practice essays that your teacher should assign.</p>

<p>AP Calc AB: </p>

<p>My experience:</p>

<p>I took this exam this year after a year of taking an AP Calculus BC class (it’s a long story why I opted for the AB exam). Our instruction was very similar to how I had been taught in math in past years. Each day we worked on a new concept out of our textbook. The teacher was quite knowledgeable and he taught us well. The tests were very difficult but made me well prepared for the AP exam. I relied on The Princeton Review and the AP Central FRQs for most of my AP exam review. After working out every AP Central problem and taking all of the PR practice multiple choice sections, in addition to a year of AP Calculus BC, I was ready for anything. I walked in extremely confident and I felt that the exam was extremely easy. In fact, I almost felt it wasn’t challenging enough. I feel very sure of myself in scoring at least a 4, if not a 5.</p>

<p>My advice:</p>

<p>Pay close attention in class and take careful notes of how to work out the problems. Do all of your homework and ask your teacher for help if you don’t understand something. YouTube is also great for showing you how to work out problems. Review out of The Princeton Review for the multiple choice section and practice the online FRQs from AP Central. Seriously, DO THE AP CENTRAL FRQs. The scoring guidelines show what the readers are looking for in each problem. There are a lot of similar questions asked from year to year on the free response section. The question may be different, but the concepts are similar (perfect example is the Riemann sums, since they’re basically the same every year). Look at the examples of student work and it will show you how to work out the problem.</p>

<p>AP English Language and Composition:</p>

<p>My experience:</p>

<p>Our teacher had us stay after school and come on a couple of weekends to take full length practice exams. She assigned us several books to read throughout the year and spent a great deal of time teaching us the ways of rhetoric. We practiced literary terms and did tons of practice multiple choice questions. We worked out of Cliffs quite a bit. I always felt I had a natural ability for English, so I did little studying at all. Most of what I needed to do to prepare was given to me through the class in the form of assignments. I scored a 4.</p>

<p>My advice:</p>

<p>Get CliffsAP: English Language and Composition. This is the AP English Bible. Do all of the practice multiple choice questions. Refer to the glossary of literary terms in the back. Write essay after essay responding to prompts in each of the three forms of essays you will be responding to on the exam (again, a good teacher will assign these.) If you are good at writing and explaining the way a person writes and what effect they are trying to have on someone who reads their writing, you will like this exam a lot.</p>

<p>And yeah, that’s basically it…</p>

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<p>secreus- when you say that flashcards helped you, what exactly do you mean by that? i’m a huge believer in flashcards also but i’m not sure whether to buy some from one of the review companies (i think it’s kaplan?), to make my own from the glossary in the back of my textbook, to do “note flashcards” and write important dates/people/situations, to look up an online source with pre-done flashcards, etc… what would you suggest? </p>

<p>as for the calc preparation, i’m pretty much all set there i think. i just finished with my summer school course in trig (you skip pre-cal to take a huge crash course of trig instead) so it’ll all be very fresh in my mind, thank god.</p>

<p>byubound- wow! that was very comprehensive. much appreciated, also. i am attending a relatively nice school so and the majority of my subjects next year will be taught by good teachers, so hopefully i’ll get all of those things in that you suggested to do.</p>

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<p>DD read "A people’s history fo the United States " by Howard Zinn for U.S.</p>

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<p>^I hated that book but it was good for DBQs and questions that ask you to analyze primary source documents. I definitely suggest reading it if it’s not already assigned. If it is, try reading history books that aren’t textbooks or test prep books, they really widen your ability to see history in different ways.</p>

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<p>^^I found Howard Zinn very amusing, but I am old.</p>

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<p>What should we do over the summer if we don’t want to cover everything before taking the actual course?</p>

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<p>You should read the first few chapters of a review book. It will give you a head start once school starts and make you familiar with the basis of the course.</p>

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<p>Concentrate on the courses that you think will give you the most trouble. At DD’s school, AP bio was an incredible amount of reading as was AP US. </p>

<p>If you know your textbook, you might also check to see whether it has an online companian Web site. You do that by doing a Google search for the text, author and publisher. The sites were very popular a couple of years ago and publishers found that they were expensive to maintain, so the site could be for an older edition of your book. The sites are helpful because they sometimes have electronic flash cards, outlines, practice tests and quizzes, etc. Often there is no password. If your text is published by Pearson or Prentice Hall, often there is a Web site. Others have them as well, just look around.</p>

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<p>Advice: relax for the summer, you’re gonna need it.</p>

<p>The two histories PLUS Bio are not at all hard, but they are very very reading intensive. You’ll be spending most of your time reading these three textbooks.</p>

<p>Comparative, Lang and Calc AB are very very easy. These are the classes where if one has above average intelligence, then paying attention in class would suffice.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for the suggestions - they’re varied and give me lots of approaches and mindsets to consider. My main concern is that during the school year I play travel softball nightly, so lack of time and being enervated from that is going to be a hassle. So even though it’d be nice to relax during the summer, I want to try to take advantage of this time and get something done with it. Plus, it’s not like it’s dreary work. I’m very interested in histories and learning… although Calc doesn’t seem like it’s going to be all that fun :confused: </p>

<p>As for reading books that aren’t related to the AP course itself (such as textbooks and reviewbooks), I think that I’m really going to do that. I find it a fascinating way to soak in information about a time period or subject when you’re simply reading a book for entertainment. I’m going to check out the Howard Zinn book (thank you for the suggestion!) and my sister read “The American Political Tradition” and loved it, so I’ll give that one a shot. It’s already in our bathroom as the go-to stuck on the toilet book, haha.</p>

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<p>^ remind me never to borrow that book from you, if i ever meet you, lol</p>

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<p>Haha! I must say, it is a sturdy book! It’s been through a lot lol</p>

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<p>^Hopefully sturdy enough to survive an accidental drop into the toilet</p>