<p>Our teacher (he is a homework Nazi) is making us summarize every section in our APUSH book. His tests are a piece of cake so we don’t really need to pay attention to details. However, I would like to gain as many details as possible for the APUSH MC/FR sections where I they can help. How should I approach the textbook summaries? What I’m doing right now is underlining important information in the text and then after I’m done with a section, I go back and read those parts again and just paraphrase them. My teacher advises us to read the section, close the book, and write out what you remember. However, many times, I don’t know exactly if I remember the information correctly… so I’m afraid that I will be remembering the wrong or not-entirely-correct information. How would you complete the summaries to gain the most out of it (with the least amount of time as possible)?</p>
<p>If anything, it helps you to see the “big picture.”</p>
<p>My APUSH teacher had us do outlines. It was ALOT of work, and it didn’t really even help me that much.</p>
<p>Just wondering, but is reading the text book even worth it? Personally, I think they are too wordy and I sometimes get confused while reading them. Would someone be better off reading prep books several times? People are telling me that I should read my text at least once because you need details for the FR/DBQ sections…</p>
<p>As of lately, since I received my AMSCO book, I haven’t even read the Pageant. Doing quite well, I might add. I must say that AMSCO should be the required test for AP USH; my teacher agrees with me on that, lol.</p>
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<p>lol, I never read a page of my textbook (The Enduring Vision), and I got a 3, which I really didn’t mind because I HATE history.</p>
<p>If you want a 4/5, then you should probably read the textbook.</p>
<p>Honestly, I have never found outlines to be particularly effective (USH, biology, government). A good review book is really all that is necessary to do well. Textbooks are often long and convoluted. They will help you with some obscure questions that only a textbook would have, but usually the test contains only 2-3 of those questions.</p>
<p>hmm… I take apush too but I don’t summarize EVERY section in the textbook… I took ap euro last year and I would say that compared to euro, us is more “general concepts”. I don’t think the ap test will be any more detail-oriented than your teacher’s tests so what I would advise is that you focus on “capping the main idea” of the each chapter of the text. I would think that the reason you are not remembering “correct information” is perhaps because you do not have the main idea in your head? Once you understand the general concepts, mastering the details shouldn’t be too hard. Don’t try to go from specific to general- that’s just a huge waste of your time! If you really want to memorize specific skills then try to pick out the ones that fit the main idea and not every single detail in the book. You should be able to get at least a 4/5 if you do this. For the DBQ and FRQ, you NEED to read the texbook and other supplementary materials(just so that you’ll learn how other historians write history), but again, you DO NOT need to read every parts of the textbook. I hope that helps!</p>
<p>-schoolgirl</p>
<p>So should I read the AMSCO APUSH book before reading my text? My text is not very organized because it doesn’t state things directly. I didn’t even know the wars between the British and Americans constituted the Revolutionary War until later…</p>
<p>^ I think that could work. but I wouldn’t rely too much on the amsco though. Like I said, cap the main idea first, then go back to find the details. The amsco might be great at giving you the main idea but it still might not be enough for you too understand thoroughly all the events. If I were you, I would read the textbook first(taking very brief notes, with a few details), then hit the amsco to make sure I got the main idea. What I do after that is I then start reading any other supplementary materials to get to the more specific details…</p>
<p>Should I just put the bare minimum on this summaries because I don’t think they help me out much (I don’t study from them or anything)…</p>
<p>Definitely go with bare minimum. Teachers never know what they’re doing. That is, unless your grade will suffer. Then I’d say make your teacher happy.</p>
<p>Honestly, I read about the first hundred pages of the textbook and then just stopped because I found it useless trying to remember all of that extra information. I got a 5 on the exam because I read these notes off of Course Notes and then just read the Princeton Review book. So it’s possible to do it. Recommened might be a different answer…</p>