Start reviewing early on. The exam is in May, but there are hundreds of years’ worth of facts, dates, names, motives, wars, and the like to memorize. Cramming will mean staying near the surface just to cover as much of the timeline as possible, yet the multiple choice questions require more than that, and the essays even more so. To cram on the morning of the exam is to make room for second chances – to cram and only cram is to lower your score.
Don’t memorize, understand. Critical thinking and decision-making are necessary skills for both the MC section and the essay section of the APUSH exam. If you know that Abraham Lincoln passed the emancipation proclamation that freed the slaves, it doesn’t mean much if you can’t add that he wasn’t against slavery as a whole, and would have kept it if it mean the USA stayed together. The “why” is as important as the “what”.
Practice with exams from previous years. There is a reason the curve for the APUSH exam seems so low. There is simply nothing like a test in which answer choice A is meant to trick you, no answer choices are completely right, C and D are both technically right, or a test question is completely foreign yet meant to be that way. You can rest assured that there will be at least a few questions you have no clue about – schools use different textbooks, after all – but you can prepare yourself for the general style of the questions. It’s a tricky test, and the advantage goes to the students who have seen those types of questions before. To get previous exams, search on Docstoc.com, Scribd.com, or ask your history teacher for a copy – they may have one.
Invest in one (or several) APUSH prep books. Studying from a textbook is not a good use of your time; there is simply too much information that will not appear on the test. The most recommended prep books are AMSCO, Princeton Review, Barrons, and 5 Steps to a 5. Generally, Kaplan is not considered a good guide if you are aiming for a 5, but the chapter endings provide lists of terms. Do research about what each of these books will provide for you, and make a decision based on your personal learning style.
Make or buy flash cards. This will make sure that seeing a term will trigger your mind to immediately define it – a good reflex to have that will save you valuable time thinking. Go through the cards again and again to build this reflex. The only downside is that, after the exam, it doesn’t go away for months. Walk into a restaurant and see Anasazi Burger on the menu, and you will be reminded of Indian desert culture in Arizona.
Find out some tips and tricks. Former APUSH students are always wiling to give advice to new ones. The following may be among the list: 1) Generally avoid picking answer choices containing words such as “always,” “all,” “never,” etc, unless you are sure the answer is right. 2) If you know there’s a real problem with an answer choice, just don’t pick it, even though the questions ask for “most correct.” 3) Always answer every question, because there is no longer a guessing penalty as of 2011. 4) In essays, don’t try to go “above and beyond” if it means not exactly following the question guidelines. If it asks for two examples of something, give only two. 5) Data dumping in essays is obvious to graders and will only lower your score; also, you’re creating more chances of mistakes. 6) In essays, don’t waste time quoting or summarizing documents – just analyze.
Do practice essays under timed conditions. While you certainly do not have to do the DBQ and the two FRQs in one sitting, you should start doing practice timed essays as soon as possible to build the skill of writing fast and well – and learning the art of BSing if you truly get a topic you know little about. But don’t be fooled, as BSing will never lead to a good score, perhaps an adequate one, and only if a paragraph at most is written without knowledge of the topic. Practice to get a feel of each time period’s theme.
Make sure you know all parts of history, from Beringia to the year 2000. Though colonial times are generally where the test begins, certain exams may go farther back, just as with recent times, any year now the test writers may introduce a question closer to the present than any year before. Though the writers keep in mind that some classes may be stuck as far back as the Cold War, history moves forward. (However, it has been clarified that essay questions will not go beyond the 1980s or so.)
Attend all review sessions your teachers offer – and record them. Sometimes listening is a better way of learning for a person, and a teacher should not object if you want to record the lecture and play it back later, as long as you take notes too.
So, what now?
You’ve done all you can. The night before the exam, go to sleep early. The next morning, get up early enough to be awake when you get to the testing site, but don’t rule out cramming. When I took the exam, the second-to-last question included a name I had not known before the morning’s cram session.
Don’t feel bad if you feel like you did terrible. It’s not July; you don’t know for sure. I was very uncomfortable with the 2011 DBQ and only moderately content with the FRQ topics, so the multiple choice was the only section in which I felt I did well, and even then I had misgivings because I thought it had been way too easy, and that’s usually a sign I bombed. I was terrified to call in for scores – and I got a 5. So can you.
