General

Dude, the APUSH exam is mad easy!

My friend and I skipped school the day before and we watched all of these documentaries about things from the 20th century. This, coupled with months of working hard in our APUSH class and Five Steps to a Five, scored us both 5's. :^)

I took it last year and got a 4. Even though it wasn't my highest score, it was the one I was most comfortable with.

That being said, I had bought a Barron's book early in the year and read the section that corresponded to what we were learning. Hearing the same information from two different wordings really helped me able to piece together everything. A couple weeks before the exam, I borrowed a book from the library that had about 100 potential questions, which helped more than I expected.

If your teachers offer review exams before or after school, GO TO THEM. My teacher predicted 10 possible essay topics and gave out the information you would need to get a good grade. Sure enough, 2 of the 3 on the exam were ones we went over in the review. Multiple choice is mostly just memorization but if I remember correctly, there was a lot of questions about court cases and events from 20th century. Some questions would give you a brief description and ask "who would have most likely written this".

Try NOT to cram the night before. You'll just be extra tired and the information won't stick. Good luck and I hope that helps!

"equal preparation" haha.ahahahahahaha.
I bought a princeton review book for the test, skimmed the review over each section and took the test.
You are fine. Test really isn't hard as another poster had stated.
-got a 5.

I think I ended up using Princeton Review as a review book when I took the exam two years ago.
But really, your teacher is your best wealth of knowledge. At least, they should be.
At the beginning of the year my teacher gave us these notes he made throughout the years and it was literally a 3-inch binder FILLED with notes.
It was literally a US History textbook through his point of view. I still have it to this day along with all of the supplementary stuff he gave us throughout the year.
By far the hardest high school class I ever took but because of that the exam was so goddamn easy I made a 5 with time to spare.

The key to the multiple choice is knowing concepts. Break down each major event, document, law, court case, and person.
Write out what it was, when it happened, how it was relevant at the time, and how it is relevant now.
That's the kind of stuff the multiple choice asks.

The key to the essays is knowing the back story behind a lot of events and how things compare.
This where you really need to be able to elaborate about the stuff you studied for the multiple choice. This is where you really need to know your history.
This is also where you REALLY need to know the relevance and impact of things. Be able to think critically about all the stuff you learned.
For this exam there is really only so much you can study. The rest comes with your critical thinking ability and how well you can make things connect.

Get the index cards thingys and read every last bit.

[quote=PhoKieu]For the MC, it can be overwhelming especially with some really long and drawn out questions.
What I did on the longer ones that made me think more was to skip all of them and do them at the end. Think about maximizing your score as much as possible.
For the FRQ's, think of hypothetical comparisons. Last year, I thought of how the civil right's movement could compare with the woman's rights movement and sure enough that was one of the FRQ's.

Credentials: I got a 5.[/quote]
I see. Thanks for the advice. I did hear that multiple choice can be a bit challenging.

For the MC, it can be overwhelming especially with some really long and drawn out questions.
What I did on the longer ones that made me think more was to skip all of them and do them at the end. Think about maximizing your score as much as possible.
For the FRQ's, think of hypothetical comparisons. Last year, I thought of how the civil right's movement could compare with the woman's rights movement and sure enough that was one of the FRQ's.

Credentials: I got a 5.

It was the easiest AP exam I had ever taken. I found it easier than World History AP.

There really is nothing to prepare for, you take it like you the exams for the class. The only advice I can give you is to study more on the FRQ subjects and essay portion of the exam. Also, if you're stuck on a question, or are about to run out of time on the multiple choice, just mark C.

For the multiple choice, its pure memorization.
For the essay, make sure to know major court cases or events that you can use to strengthen your argument. Also know the historical influence those event caused, and try to branch out as much as possible.
Other that that, good luck~