How much time per day does it take to self-study...

brahms91
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:03:04 +0000

I self-studied Euro this year. (I did have a little bit of prior knowledge because my world history class last year spent about 1/2 to 2/3 of a semester on Euro from the renaissance to right after german and italian reunifications.) I decided I was going to take Euro at the begining of Spring semester. So, I looked on Amazon.com and checked out book stores to find a review book. The best review book that I have found has been the European History AP Acheiver book by Chris Freiler (or something like that). I ordered that on Amazon, and got a few others from book stores (RAE for the 4 practice tests, and Modern European History by Viault, I also looked at PR but it didn’t look that great.) RAE had the most unrealistic practice test ever, so don’t get that one. Modern European History is possibly the most boring book in the world. AP Acheiver is hands down the best book on the market, The guy who writes it has been teaching AP euro for 15 years, he has worked on the test development committee and has been an exam reader.

Anyways, I got the book in the mail at the beginning of February. My studying was off and on, I had weeks where I would study for 2 hours each night and then other weeks where I didn’t study at all because I was busy with school or studying for my other self studies. I finished reading and taking notes (although by the end I got too lazy and just highlighted stuff in the book) on the book during spring break (end of March). I took one of the practice tests. after that I just reviewed my notes and looked at the book every now and then to refresh my memory. If there was any time where I wasn’t doing anything important, I would talk to myself or think to myself (depending on whether I needed to be quiet or not) about events in Euro, I would just pick a time period and one of social/economic/diplomatic etc. history and tell myself everything I knew about it.

Not counting the times where I would mumble to myself I would say it took an average (because I did it off and on) of less than an hour each night. When testing was coming up, I spent more time, maybe an hour and a half each night. I also printed off past FRQs and practiced writing. So that’s what I did for Euro, I’m pretty sure I got a 5.

I took the 2008 Stats test, but only got a 3, so you might want to ask someone else about it. I read PR 2 days before the test, about 3 or 4 hours both days. I think I would’ve received a 5 if had spent a week, with maybe only 2 hours each day studying, and/or if I had gotten a clearer review book…it was kind of confusing.