The latest edition of the regular REA APUSH book has a pale and pretty brunette girl on the cover. The cover also screams ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT GETTING A 5? at you. </p>
I have the “second printing” of the REA APUSH book. The copyright date is 1992. While my copy is quite old, not much has happened between 1992 and 2011 except that 1) Clinton got impeached 2) 9-11 and 3) Obama got elected :). </p>
As far as the content goes … the regular REA APUSH book is great! There are subheadings - e.g. “New Spain,” and then text in paragraph form. It tells you what you need to know for the AP exam, and then some … read on :). </p>
If your into overpreparing, then you’ll love the 6 tests at the end of the REA APUSH book. Each question is fully explained. And I mean explained. There’s literally a paragraph explaining each and every one of the 600 M/C questions. Each answer explanation takes up like 1/3rd of the page too. </p>
So what’s my recommendation? Just get Direct Hits. </p>
Sparknotes version of my reply:</p>
Ultimately, any of the review books mentioned in this thread (AMSCO, REA, Crash Course, and Direct Hits) can get you a 5, provided that you study each book thoroughly. The books take different approaches to the APUSH exam though:</p>
AMSCO and REA try to cover everything that might be on the exam. </p>
Crash Course and Direct Hits only cover material that have repeatedly appeared on the APUSH exam. This has proven to be an extremely effective approach. Direct Hits is the better of the two though. </p>
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