Tips for each subject from AP-graduates!

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>I think it would be a good idea for everybody who took an AP exam this year (i.e., within the past two weeks) to share their tips for each subject, to give some insight to those who are taking the class and/or exam next year. The reason now is a good time to do it is because by next year, you won’t care too much to talk about the AP classes that you took the year before.</p>

<p>So just list your subjects and tips, and then we’ll compile a master list after several people have contributed. I’ll start:</p>

<p>Biology
Bottom line: The CLASS can be difficult and challenging, depending on your teacher and your school schedule, but the exam is a piece of cake, provided you know your material. </p>

<p>Throughout the year: It takes quite a bit of concentration to read Campbell’s a few hours per week and really grasp the concepts. With such short school years, it’s even harder to cover all the material and you just never know what will be asked on the exam. I could only answer one of three parts on a particular FRQ this year because we hadn’t covered a specific concept. I briefly studied it myself, but I didn’t go into the depth required to answer this particular question. Therefore, throughout the school year, you should really learn the concepts and information (bio is just pure facts; no major themes, ideas, etc. like World History) using an in-depth source such as Campbell’s Biology (text book). Don’t just teach yourself from a review guide, because if you learn just the bare minimum and factor in memory decay (forgetting), then you don’t know all you need to know for the exam. But if you learn more than enough and forget some, then you can still know plenty for the exam. </p>

<p>How to review: It’s rather simple if you’ve kept up with the class throughout the year: Read Cliff’s from cover-to-cover the weekend before the exam. Cliff’s is the best review for AP Bio and it is AWESOME. It’s very easy to read in a weekend (the AP bio exam is always on a Monday), and it doesn’t leave you feeling like you crammed. Also very helpful for me was to take some of the released exams (I took four of them). They really do give you a good idea of what’s coming up on the exam, and you can also see how you do. I scored consistently on all four of them throughout my various stages of studying, so I feel pretty confident that I did just as well on the actual exam. Also sit down and attempt FRQs from previous years (available on the CB website). Act as if you’re in the actual exam and write ALL you can. Then use the scoring rubrics to see what kind of points you’d earn. This will help you learn whether or not you need to go into more detail in your responses, and will help you see what kinds of things can get you points.</p>

<p>I’ll add my commentary on World History later. :p</p>

2

<p>** Chemistry **</p>

<p>I took it this year and I am quite confident I got at least a 4 (usually get like 40-50 raw score on the m/c) and I did okay on the FRQ. (just wasn’t expecting a solubility problem…)</p>

<p>The thing that really drives me nuts are those solubility rules and colors of precipitates. And they have those questions EVERY YEAR. Especially on the Laboratory part of the FRQ. So remember those colors and solubility rules well.</p>

<p>Acid/Base are the next big thing (if not just as important), get your pH, pOH, pKa rectangle right, and know them by heart. Seriously. </p>

<p>Another thing that you should remember are the spontaneity chart, believe it or not, the AP exam occasionally test you on that chart. G = H - TS, get this equation in your head.</p>

<p>The molecules in bonding are very straightforward and so are the atomic theory part. They occasionally throw in organic chemistry in there</p>

3

<p>AP European History</p>

<p>Keep up with reading throughout the year. Buy the PR in mid February, and know it like the back of your hand. Make sure you know key concepts like Socialism or the French Revolution. Memorize the map of Europe. For the DBQ, always find some way to use ALL the documents and analyze POV for a majority, to be safe. Use notecards for people, places, events, and other “vocabulary items”. I did the above, and got a 5 on the exam, no problem. And for the MC, practice a lot and get use to their types of questions.</p>

4

<p>AP Human Geography</p>

<p>Read Princeton Review and Barron’s. Know examples for everything because it will be needed at a later time.</p>

5

<p>Bio:</p>

<p>DON’T use Campbell’s. It’s a pretty crappy textbook for its length. Get Starr/Taggart’s “Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life.”</p>

<p>It’s an amazing text, one of my favorite ever. It’s funny and friendly at times, while presenting just as many important concepts as Campbell’s, in a more accessible way. It also has a very poignant passage on death.</p>

6

<p>AP Physics B</p>

<p>Memorize ALL the formulas, not just the ones on the review sheet but every formula you ever come across during the course of the class. Get an AP book in the beginning of the year and keep working from it, it will not only prep you for the exam but help you a lot for the class itself. Barrons, PR, and 5 steps to a 5 are really good books for this course, in my opinion. On the exam, there’s A LOT of mechanics so make sure you know those problems very well.</p>

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<p>Environmental Science</p>

<p>Use Princeton Review. I bought 3 prepbooks: PR, Kaplan, and 5 steps, and out of them ,PR was the only one that even began to model the actual exam. Also, don’t procrastinate if you are self-studying. Many people on CC (not me) did and feel that they may have failed. Know examples of things and get pollutants down.</p>

8

<p>English Language and Composition
The two things you need to know to succeed in the exam are how to answer the multiple-choice reading passage questions and how to write each essay. If you’re taking AP English Language as a class, your class should take care of preparation. If you’re confident in how you scored on practice tests and you consistently score 7s or better on essays, you don’t need to study. To paraphrase my teacher: the exam is about skill, not knowledge. Outside knowledge on the argumentative and synthesis essays will help you, though.
**
Calculus AB**
This should be a piece of cake if you understand the concepts. If not, get help from your teacher or get a review book. My teacher was avilable office hours and during his prep period, and I understood much better than from learning in class.</p>

<p>AP US History
[Get</a> this book](<a href=“http://www.amscopub.com/price_list_book_information.html?CM=Prod&CID=19&PID=120"]Get”>http://www.amscopub.com/price_list_book_information.html?CM=Prod&CID=19&PID=120) and practice the DBQs and take practice exams.</p>

<p>@puggly123, are PR and Barron’s the only books you’ll need to pass the test easily?</p>

9

<p>AP US History:
Read the book. Once when you are assigned thta chpater and once before the test. Understand why people did things, not just what. It worked for me - I got a high 5 on the practice exams (95% MC, all the FR points, etc). You have to understand American history, not just know it.</p>

<p>AP Chemistry:
Again, understand why reaction happen. Also, my teacher forced the class to do released AP FRs from the past for homework. I think that may be a good idea for a lot of people. Know the general form of equilibrium problems, like Ksp and Ka/Kb. Most importantly, understand things at the molecular level. Visualize the reaction happening while learning about it. This method helped me get usually 95% raw score on both MC and FR, so I wuold say it worked pretty well.</p>

<p>AP US Government:
If you have taken US History, then this should be easy. Knowing the constitution and how it is applied, court cases, and what interest groups should almost guarantee you a 5 if you know it well. There’s not a lot of information tested, but it is sometimes alarmingly specific sometimes. It was another AP test I did scored well (usually -1 MC and -0 FR). It really just comes down to knowing a few things and how they can be applied in a lot of different situations.</p>

<p>AP Biology:
Know all you can. Read all of the covered chapters.</p>

<p>Overall, the main thing is understanding. If you understand things, then hopefully you can achieve better score with less work.</p>

10

<p>If you’re taking any of the following AP exams, get the following review books. Regardless of how bad the teacher or class is, these will help you to succeed on the AP exam as long as you are willing to study hard. It is best to use the review books along with your textbook, but you could probably get by with just the review book.</p>

<p>AP European History - Princeton Review
AP U.S. History - Princeton Review
AP English Language and Composition - CliffsAP
AP U.S. Government and Politics - Princeton Review
AP Statistics - REA
AP Calculus AB/BC - Princeton Review
AP Microeconomics - 5 Steps to a 5</p>

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<p>AP European History: Learn the key terms, key figures, and key periods in history (especially women’s history and post-Cold War). When studying, keep the Social/Political/Economic/Intellectual/Religious/Technological/Cultural themes in mind. Purchase the AP Achiever book (from Amazon) and REA’s Crash Course. Read AP Achiever and memorize Crash Course</p>

<p>AP French: Learn grammar. For this test, grammar > vocabulary in my opinion. </p>

<p>AP Physics B: Conservation of energy. Know how to apply this to everything. If you keep conservation of energy in mind throughout the year and during the AP test, you’ll do great, even if you’re not too familiar with or good at some areas (like electricity and magnetism for me).</p>

<p>AP Calculus BC: Learn CONCEPTS. Conceptual stuff makes up more of the exam than you may think. Also, know how to integrate partial fractions; that shows up EVERY YEAR. It’s always a MC problem that takes very little time if you know how to do it. Learn your integration rules, derivative rules, volume methods, series tests, EULER’S METHOD, L’HOPITAL’S RULE, and parametric. Polar is nice, but it’s not a big thing compared to parametric. </p>

<p>For all of these, find released exams and do them. It’s the closest you’ll get to the real exam (unless you steal one from your school, which I don’t recommend)</p>

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<p>For APUSH and APEuro, [this[/url</a>] is an excellent site, from practice quizzes to (for AP American History) a giant review packet by a past student.
Also, for APUSH, do NOT buy Barron’s. Most of the book is just sample essay questions and a sample answer (not even a real student one), and it’s just too much information to trudge through. At the back of the book is a simple timeline and some quick review, but not enough to be worth actually looking at for a test. Questions/practice tests are pretty helpful, but doesn’t save the rest of the book.
For APEuro: [url=<a href=“http://college.cengage.com/history/west/mckay/western_society/7e/students/outlines.html]this”>http://college.cengage.com/history/west/mckay/western_society/7e/students/outlines.html]this</a> site](<a href=“http://historyteacher.net/]this[/url”>http://historyteacher.net/). It’s actually based off of the 7th (which isn’t the latest) edition of a history textbook.</p>

<p>For Calculus, which I didn’t do so hotly on, I like the way [this</a> guy](<a href=“http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/CalcI.aspx]this”>http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/CalcI.aspx) explains stuff, but I’ve only visited this a few times. Go on collegeboard’s website and try out their released FRQs with answers.</p>

<p>For English Language…a lot has to do with natural ability for multiple choice. If you read a lot in general and enjoy it, you’re off to a good start; also, put yourself in the author’s shoes for the more ambiguous, “feeling” questions. Know footnotes, vocab terms like metonymy, antecedent, etc. For writing, I guess the best advice I can give you is to be as specific as possible when providing examples, and to make sure you fully answer the question.</p>

<p>For Environmental Science…vocabulary is key. If it’s the end of the year, go through your textbook glossary and write down everything you don’t know. Even if you know it, memorize a few examples (i.e…don’t just know what a keystone species is, be prepared to name a few and where) Collect your class notes throughout the year and condense them before the test to just hard facts that aren’t common sense. It’s good to know conversions (just read the questions carefully so you don’t mistake megawatt for kilowatt or something), case studies (major ones like Chernobyl, Love Tunnel, Aral Sea, etc.), and legislation history (laws/acts/global treaties or major summits). I don’t think you have to know any people (except for like Rachael Carson). I could write an entire essay on what you need to know, but just go to collegeboard.com or read your textbook.</p>

<p>In general: Find out your testing schedule by looking it up at least a month before, so you know when to cram for each. (For example, if you have two AP tests on the same day, figure out how you’re going to study for both, etc.) And during the year, save notes, important or useful sheets, etc. for cramming at the end of the year (make photocopies, even, if you know you’re going to lose them).</p>

<p>Go to bed early during the year. This is something I tell myself to do but somehow always forget…</p>

13

<p>Calculus (AB/BC)- don’t just try memorize the formulas for everything, especially limits. Think critically and keep asking why. Limits are so much easier when you think critically rather than scrambling to remember a rule. For BC, know your series, especially the Maclaurin series. Also know how to do Eulers method! The Princeton Review is great for explaining concepts and giving good practice problems.</p>

<p>Psychology- Meyer’s Psychology book is great. Review all material constantly throughout the year. The course in itself will give you tips on how to be successful in it</p>

<p>Chemistry- Review everything periodically. Always check for sig figs and if your numbers are in the proper form (like L instead of mL). </p>

<p>Lit- Enjoy the books you read. Sparknotes is translating more books from Ye Olde English to modern English. I read the No Fear Heart of Darkness the night before the exam (after reading it last summer and getting totally lost) and I used it on my exam. Read Heart of Darkness and A Streetcar Named Desire- only the latter I enjoyed but these two books seem applicable to every open question.</p>

<p>Music Theory- have perfect pitch. Jk (but it does make the test a lot easier). Know your terms for the nonaural part. My teacher said knowing your scales and the circle of fifths is all you need to know for the exam (but I’d add on the circle of fifths chord progressions). Aural- keep tapping your foot during the examples and know your intervals. Listen and play classical music. You never know if a song you’ve played/heard before is used on the test!</p>

<p>For every single test- just do your homework and put some effort into it. get sleep (as everary said), and take a break every once in a while. check out ap central for practice free response questions- thats the best way to prepare.</p>

14

<p>For AP Biology, once your teacher gives you the Campbells Textbook, put it in the closet and let it collect dust. </p>

<p>Cliffnotes + CrashCourse = 5</p>

<p>For APUSH, once your teacher gives you the American Pagent, put it in the closet and let it collect dust.</p>

<p>Amsco + CrashCourse = 5</p>

<p>For AP Psych, read Myers, it’s actually pretty fun and interesting. The day before, go out and buy CrashCourse = 5</p>

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<p>** APUSH **</p>

<p>amsco</p>

16

<p>AP Economics-
Macro - Barrons = win
Micro - Barrons is good, but you really need to practice drawing all the graphs.</p>

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<p>I took 4 APs and self-studied 4 (including AP Calculus BC)</p>

<p>-AP Calculus AB (BC self)
-APUSH
-APWH
-AP Biology
Self-studied
-AP Statistics
-AP EnviSci
-AP Psychology.</p>

<p>Be consistent with your APs, as in do your work regularly. Start your self-studies early and you might not need textbooks for all of them, but they sure do help.</p>

<p>and whatever people tell you… Only YOU know what you can handle. I had so many people tell me that self-studying APs were impossible and foolish (I go to a very small school with little APs). Now, after having taken those tests, I feel like I earned a 5 on everyone of them except for AP statistics and I sure as hell learned a lot.</p>

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<p>Actually, for APUSH, I didn’t use a prep book and I thought The American Pageant was very helpful. It definitely covers everything you must know.</p>

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<p>Wow, it didn’t let me edit…</p>

<p>AP Economics-
Macro - Barrons = win
Micro - Barrons is good, but you really need to practice drawing all the graphs.</p>

<p>Calculus and Physics - Do all the problems, understand all the concepts, pay attention in class… Practice released FRQs for these tests if your class isn’t already doing so. I don’t know about self-studying these… As far as AP books go, I’m clueless. Try not to get yourself into a situation where you need to use them. </p>

<p>Chemistry - I had an amazing teacher, but the key for this test is treating the class like you would a math or physics class. There are a LOT of concepts for this exam, but they are eventually learned by being drilled on problems. For my class, we actually practiced something like 15 years of Chemistry Olympiad exams in addition to released MC and FRQs. </p>

<p>World - I self-studied this, but I had a good Euro teacher. History isn’t something that’s easily crammed, so make sure you keep up with the class, and put the content in your long-term memory. Understanding what resulted from events is important. Oh, and for this test (and for Euro), it’s really helpful to know the [political] geography of the world in various time periods. </p>

<p>Euro - Map questions actually come up somewhat often on the test, so know all the maps, and at the very least, memorize what countries are where in Europe. It’s funny though… on the MC, questions about the <em>natural</em> science come up. I remember a question asking what scientists were important in the development of medicine on the 2004 or something. Modern science developed in the AP Euro era- even knowing Kepler’s laws helps. Knowing government systems helps, knowing literature helps, knowing geography helps… Oh, and ART HISTORY is incredibly helpful on the exam, as there’s always at least 5 questions pertaining to Art.
Euro has that tendency to link so many other subjects together…</p>

<p>Social Sciences- Just Barrons (or whatever study book you use) it. Social Science APs are insanely easy for some reason. Having a good History background can help for Human Geography.</p>

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<p>@hahalolk-
how do you know what percentages you got on your tests? do they tell you when you get the score?</p>