Which History to self study for SAT and AP

<p>HEy, I'm entering the 2008/2009 year at Andover as a sophomore from an international school with no knowledge of SATs/APs.</p>

<p>I'm doing my SAT IIs in Math II and Physics this academic year and AP Calculus BC and Physics C at the end of this academic year. I haven't registered though for any of them. I'll also ask the Andover officials when should I do the SATs. But I aso want to self study a History for both AP and SAT so preferably a History which is in both forms. Does anyone know which History does SAT and AP exams and is easiest to self study?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Any morsel of help would be gratefully wolfed up! </p>

<p>I'm basically about to buy the textbook so it'd be a great bonus if someone helps.</p>

<p>My kids self-studied AP World History because their school has a strong curriculum in that subject (though not an AP course). It was fine. I've read that many students find the US History exams fairly easy to prepare for, but that could be different if you are a foreigner who hasn't had US History fed to you since age 6. </p>

<p>One thing to consider is where you want to go to college. Check their AP credit listings, and you might find that many of the more selective colleges list US History but not World History among the courses for which they grant college credit. I was surprised by that. (This won't matter, of course, if you plan to take the AP test simply for the achievement value and not in hopes of gaining college credit.)</p>

<p>Agree with FauxNorm. I took the World History AP test and the SAT II my sophomore year and the US History AP test my junior year. I found that US History was easier to recall because of all the American history factoids I had been subject to since kindergarten, an advantage you may not hold. However, I mostly self-studied the world history tests and did very well on them. The world history tests complement each other well; it's mostly the same material.</p>

<p>Personally, I would recommend World over US, despite the fact that the AP test is less widely accredited (I do not know any school where the SAT subject tests are not interchangeable). The questions tend to be more general and therefore more conducive to self-study. But note that there are only two dates this coming year for the SAT World History test, Dec 6 and June 6, whereas US History is offered Oct 4, Nov 1, Dec 6, Jan 24, May 2 and June 6. With either SAT test, I would shoot for the June 6 offering because it is immediately after the AP tests and you will be best prepped for it.</p>

<p>I would recommend World History over US. I took AP World and the SATII in World this year. The best study guide for BOTH tests is Barrons AP World. Just read that and you should easily get a 5/800 on both your tests. I did and on this World SATII I took this past Saturday I missed 10 at MOST (16 wrong is the cutoff for an 800).</p>

<p>I've taken all four exams in question, though I only have the results back from the two World exams. Of the two, I found AP World easier than APUSH and thought that the two SATIIs were quite similar in difficulty. World is much broader, but this means that, especially on the AP exam, the concepts discussed tend to be more about broad trends rather than the factoids found on APUSH. I agree with llpitch, Barrons AP World is a really good way to study for the tests. Make sure you are familiar with the format on the SATII also.</p>

<p>I self studied US History because I learned about 20,000 times since elementary school. Believe it or not, my 8th grade US History teacher based his course on AP Classes. He was one hardcore guy.</p>

<p>I've only decided on my reaches which are:</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Penn Wharton
Chicago</p>

<p>So not sure if it changes anything. So just cram from Barrons seems to be a good indicator. The APs are more for the achievement value for now as I haven't decided a major, but it is highly feasible I will be doing a history/humanity based major.</p>

<p>I liked US history better than World. And I think US history might be easier too.</p>

<p>Would it be possible to self study both? </p>

<p>Or just a waste of time?</p>

<p>Why would you want to study both? You only need/want 1 humanities based SATII for any college. Focus on the others now (Math2 and a science).</p>

<p>Well in case I stuff up one, I could just utilize the other as a SAT II score. Because I'm ambitiously and perhaps unrealistically (as I've never done one before, I don't know my chances) of gettin as close to 2400 as possible.</p>

<p>Remember that you only have to do two or three. And, honestly, if you have problems with one of them you will probably have trouble with the other as well. And colleges don't look at the combined score with SAT IIs, just the score out of 800.</p>

<p>oh right, yeah...</p>

<p>Well in Australia I did really well in history because it was essay based and the SATs don't really show too much love for those types of students so I'm not sure how I'd fare in SATs for anything except Math (I did the SSATs so vague resemblance at least I'm sure).</p>

<p>shore, you are absolutely correct that the NM competition is only for US citizens, but it still wouldn't hurt to take the psat as a practice run for the SAT.</p>

<p>I took AP Euro and SAT World History last year, and AP/SAT US this year</p>

<p>I think most history are possible, since there isn't much deviation between world history and US history (it's all memorizing dates, time periods, trend, etc etc). I think you should determine which subject fascinates you more, do you prefer a more detailed study of a few hundred years (US) or a more general overview of thousands of years for different civilizations. One note is that European History isn't the best option since most colleges don't recognize the AP Euro credit.</p>