sabitcher:
The APs
AP Language & Composition
Do the summer reading. A lot of my friends are trying to put this off until the last week before school, and let me tell you, it won’t do you any good. There’s no way you can annotate, finish, and retain the content from all of those novels in time to write an in-class essay or complete a project about it.
Buy 5 Steps to a 5. It’s a review book for the AP exam that contains essay prompts and practice multiple choice sections. This will not only help with the AP exam, but also for the class itself. In APLANG, your teacher will constantly be giving you practice AP multiple choice worksheets
as well as in-class essays and counting them as grades, so it’s good to be prepared.
Self-teach. Your teacher probably won’t ask you to bring your workbook in until the last few weeks before the AP exam, so it’s up to you to keep up with the content. Do not wait until the last couple of months before the exam to try and cram everything in.
Read everything. If you consider skipping out on a section because it covers techniques or information you’ve learned in class, don’t.
If you haven’t been forced to recall that information over and over, you will have forgotten those things. Do yourself a favor and take the extra five minutes to review. Also, sometimes your teacher won’t have enough room in their curriculum to cover everything you’ll need for the AP exam, because passing the class is not the same as passing the exam, so you’ll have to take care of yourself and be an autodidact.
Don’t procrastinate. Always start essays early so that you can have a rough draft and a final draft. Always finish assigned readings on time because the more you push them back, the more they pile up, and chances are you’ll just end up not reading the book at all. Sparknotes is nice but it can’t do it all.
Annotate. This is a big one. When you’re lucky, your teacher will assign take-home essays for your readings, but sometimes you’ll have to do them in class, and unless you have photographic memory and can immediately recall which page has that quote you liked or perfectly expressed the theme the prompt is asking you about, it would be wise to annotate. You don’t have to color-code or do anything extravagant, just mark your book up and leave post-its. Here are some ideas:
Characterization and character development
Themes
Particular uses of diction and tone
Questions (for yourself, the teacher, or just to keep in mind)
Things that stand out to you
When something important happens
Don’t be stubborn. When your teacher hands back essay feedback, accept the criticism and move on. If you feel like your teacher made a mistake, be upfront and ask them about it, but otherwise learn from your own mistakes and improve on that.
Be confident. Don’t be afraid to express your ideas in your essays. You will get points taken off for introducing your point and not driving it home. I’ve found that if I write what I believe, I generally score higher. Pull from your own experiences and be passionate about your writing.
Answer the prompts, don’t bend them. Many students get points reduced for trying to find a loophole in the prompts or trying to change them to better answer them. If you don’t know how to answer a prompt, write what you believe and do your best. You will score higher based off confidence than trying to cheat the judges.
Have fun. This will very likely be one of your favorite classes. Just about everyone in my APLANG class had a Tumblr and they were the most outgoing and liberal individuals I know in one big cluster. My teacher was strict, but fun, and I’ve taken more out of this class than I could have imagined and I would do it all again. Take advantage of this class and learn from your experiences.
AP Calculus AB & BC
Buy the review books. For AB. For BC. Does this need an explanation?
Pay attention in class. The information in this class is cumulative and missing one topic will lead up to not understanding all of the topics. Resist the urge to space out and just push through.
Take notes. The teacher may have their notes available online but doing them yourself will help you understand the material better and make connections, and your notes will be tailored to your learning techniques, not just a general audience.
Seek help. Ask questions, go to tutoring, talk to the teacher, talk to other teachers. As mentioned earlier, it is crucial to comprehend what you’re learning and trying to figure out yourself what you clearly can’t get past will only cause you to stay in one place.
Ask classmates for help. Seek out the kids who are doing stellar in the class and ask them, since they may be able to explain the work in better terms than the teachers themselves. I know a kid with great marks who has never had a problem helping people who ask for it and tutoring them after school.
Use the internet. Obviously, if you’re on the studyblr tag and you’re reading this, you’re already using the internet to get help. But there are more resources out there. Khan Academy, Paul’s Notes, HippoCampus, etc. If you’re too scared to hire an in-person tutor, you could always opt for one of those online tutoring programs that allow you to communicate via instant message, or some schools have peer tutoring programs that let you communicate in the same manner.
Don’t use your calculator as a crutch. There is a calculator-inactive section on the AP exam, so make sure you know how to solve things on your own.
Do the homework. Do every problem, and if you had a hard time with it, do it again. If you can’t solve it, ask a friend. If they weren’t much help, star the problem and ask your teacher the next day. Whatever you do, do not give up on a concept that you have not totally conquered yet.
Show all of your work. Label everything. It’s tedious and annoying for some, but it will be worth it to build the habit for tests and to go back and figure out what you did wrong.
Study. Especially in a subject like maths, you’ll need to keep doing problems to retain the information, and that’s how you’ll study in this class. Don’t wait until the last day before the test. If you’re going to procrastinate about it, at least start studying a week before the assessment; that gives you enough time to:
Practice.
Figure out what you don’t understand.
Ask around for help.
Go to a tutoring session.
This is a tutorial I made for studying maths, but it was meant for Precalculus. I never took AP Calc, so I wouldn’t know how useful it will be, but if you’re desperate, it’s worth a try.
Don’t beat yourself up. AP Calc wasn’t meant to be easy. My school had to let half the students who took AP Calc drop out in the middle of the semester because they were struggling so hard with it. That being said, don’t slack off. I’m just saying that you should do the work and try your best but don’t lose sleep over the class, because you should always come first.
AP U.S. History
Read the textbook. If I could only give you one tip, it would be to keep up with the readings. Don’t let yourself get behind, especially not in this class. It’s tough, and so are the readings. Similar to AP Calc, once you get behind in one topic, you’ll fall behind in all the others trying to catch up.
Take notes. It’s one thing to read the textbook, but it’s another to retain the information. APUSH chapters are long, so don’t waste your time passively scanning the words without actually understanding what you’ve read. Taking notes helps. What my teacher would always tell us to do is to read the sections first before taking notes, because then you’ll know what’s really essential. And when I say section, I don’t mean chapter, I mean each subheading - you’ll understand when you open your books.
Make flashcards. At my school, we had to do SFI; basically each unit we would get around 70 terms to make flashcards for by the time the exam rolls around, and they were only worth 5 points for a homework grade, but they really helped me remember the information since we had to hand-write them all. At my friend’s school, they had to do IDs; it’s the same concept, except instead of letting you loose to define the terms any which way, (I think) you have to identify who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here is a link to my APUSH flashcards tutorial, but if you’re doing IDs, I’m not sure how much help it will be.
Buy the AMSCO book. It’s way better than the Barron’s book. And when you read the review books, I suggest highlighting through essential information and changing to a different color when the topic changes. I did this prepping for the AP exams and each page basically ended up being a rainbow, but it really helped with categorizing the information and not letting my eyes go numb from looking at the same bright color for too long at a time.
Pay attention in class. I know probably about 90% of my fellow APUSH students did not even open their textbooks. I don’t doubt that that will be some of you too. It wouldn’t hurt to have notes from class lectures in hand when you haven’t even read the textbook. Also, please keep in mind that class lectures only cover an inkling of what will be on the tests, and you should definitely not use notes from class as a crutch. I promise you, it will not be enough.
Short answer, long essay. These wrecked me in APUSH (amongst other things). The trick to doing well with these is simply to just answer the question. Be as straightforward as possible, don’t try to make your response any longer by adding fluff or fancy wording. The judges aren’t looking to see how eloquent you are - good grammar will not save you if you don’t answer the question and hit all the points. Usually, short answer and long essay prompts ask about certain terms, or at least include them in the question. First thing you do, write a thesis in a complete sentence. Then, define those terms. Next, apply your reasoning and make sure to include historical context and plenty of SFI/IDs. Also, take a stand. Don’t be ambiguous about your answer.
Pay attention to rubrics. This applies to DBQs, long essays, and short answers. Answer the question, and follow the rubric word-for-word.
Pace yourself. My teacher always timed our tests to condition us for the AP exam; we would get 25 minutes for 25 questions, and the way the tests are formatted is they will give you what is called a stimuli (a political cartoon, picture, except from a historical document, etc.) and three of four questions having to do with it. The stimuli are sometimes long. The questions are also long. Be sure to watch the clock and be aware of how much time you’re giving yourself to finish the multiple choice section of the test.
Follow APUSH blogs! These blogs will give you resources and practice questions, answer students’ questions, provide daily multiple choice or short answer questions to challenge students, etc.
apushnotes
apushreview
apushwarrior
apushresources
AP Physics
Label everything, draw everything.
For Physics specifically, that is the most important piece of advice I can give you. Write the formula first thing when you start a new problem. If you’re unfamiliar with the variables, write them all out on your paper while studying. This seems tedious and redundant but the more you force your brain to recall that information, the easier it will be to remember it later on. Usually I’ll write the formula(s), identify all the variables, draw a visual for the problem in the margin (and label it with the given measurements), and, once I’ve completed the problem, check that I have no naked numbers (units on everything).
Participate during class. Pay attention. Ask questions, help your peers, provide answers. If you find class participation stressful, consider setting aside a sheet of paper just for your questions and inquiries during class.
Bring your textbook. Remember when I said to flag the pages you’re covering in class? Flag, in a different color, the questions and concepts you’re having difficulties with on the homework so that you may ask the teacher for assistance. Use the textbook during class. Don’t half-ass the exercises at school thinking you can review it later on. Try your best now during class while you have peers and your teacher to help when you run into issues.
Study every day. Try to set aside around an hour a day to study for this subject. An hour a day for a week is better than seven hours the day before the test. When you can’t figure out a problem, sometimes it’s easier to use solved problems from your notes as a guide rather than going by the textbook.
Do the homework. Don’t cheat on the homework and, yeah, feel ashamed of yourself when you have to ask a classmate for their answers. You won’t be able to learn if you don’t figure out how to do the work yourself; knowing how to do the work is one thing, and having done the work is another. Experiences pay off
Use online resources. Same as in AP Calc, there have been tons of students before you who have struggled in the same aspects. There is bound to be resources and programs available online for free to help you through what you need help on, including Khan Academy.
Don’t overthink it. The worst thing you can do in a subject like AP Phys is overthinking the problems. In Engineering, my teacher would shake his head at us for complicating the simplest questions. He would write the equations needed to solve the problem on the board and tell us not to turn the question into something it’s not. Label your variables and figure out what you need to do based on context clues.
AP Subjects in General
Form study groups. I made the mistake this year of not connecting with my classmates and forming study groups. This would definitely have been helpful, not only because you can meet up and study for upcoming assessments together and share notes, but also because if you miss class you will have people there to tell you what happened.
Make a Google Drive account. When working on group projects, my classmates and I always uploaded folders and files over Google Drive and shared them with each other. This takes dividing and conquering to a new level while making editing a whole lot easier.
Go to class. Playing hookie will be especially tempting this year, but this will also be the year it will cost you the most. It’s painful, I know, I get it, but what’s also painful is the stress and anxiety that comes with failing your classes because you thought you could keep up with the workload, and didn’t,
Go the extra mile.
Whatever you do, do not let yourself miss out on a learning opportunity, and never give up. If your teacher told you to read a chapter, answer the review questions, read the chapter summaries. You only had to do ten problems for homework? Do ten more. Keep doing them until you can’t get them wrong anymore. The key to doing well in AP courses is to cover all your bases and go above and beyond.
Do the homework ASAP. You rarely get homework in subjects like AP Language & Composition and APUSH, so when you do, do it right away, because:
You will forget about it since they are AB-day and you don’t usually get work in those classes.
Chances are, if you’re getting homework out of nowhere, it’s important and your teacher wants you to take something out of it.
You have to want to learn. I’ve never successfully retained any information if I hadn’t been actively trying to learn it. You can’t push through with this mindset that school is this mundane, crap activity that you need to get through to live your life. You have to think of it as a game, a challenge, to learn as much as you can and beat out your peers.
The SATs
Study for them! It’s never too late to take the SATs, unless you’re now a rising senior, then yeah, it’s a little late, and also why are you reading this? Anyway, I didn’t take my SATs until this June, and it was pretty stressful because it was right between all of my final exams. I wouldn’t suggest taking your SATs way late into the year, but don’t ruin your grades losing sleep over them. As long as you study for your SATs (you can’t put this off!) you will be fine.
Register for the PSAT/NMSQT. This will help you become familiar with the material you will see on the actual SATs, and will allow you to become eligible for the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
Consider taking the ACT. You don’t have to, but if you score well in one, you won’t need the other, unless your dream school doesn’t take ACT scores.
College Stuff
Go to college fair. I was overcome with anxiety about not even knowing where I wanted to go to school until my friend made me sign up to go to college fair. It was a drive, but it was amazing, and really opened up my eyes to the opportunities I can explore. Really, even if you already know where you’re going to go, give college fair a chance. I didn’t think it would help me at all, but now I know my top 5 because of it.
Community service. If you haven’t already been doing it, you need to start. Pile on the volunteer hours, but do something that will make a difference. Don’t volunteer at your local library and shelve books, do something that will impress the college admissions officers, like volunteering at a homeless shelter, a suicide hotline, your local hospital.
Get involved with extracurricular activities. But don’t spread yourself too thin. For one thing, you don’t want to take on more than you can handle. And for another, it looks better for you to be really involved in one club than to be playing minor roles in a handful of clubs. Pursue what you’re passionate about - if you’re interested in medicine, sign up for HOSA and compete in events. Same goes for technology (TSA) and business (DECA), as well as all the other clubs (those are just the big dogs).
Make good impressions. You will be needing reference letters, so keep up appearances with your teachers and counselors. Make sure they know your face, let them know you’re in it to win it and that you’re going places.