5 Ways to Start the AP Year off Right
Starting an AP history course this fall? Here are some things you can do right now to set yourself up for success in May.
The AP history exams are enormous exams. They cover a wide range of content and also ask that you demonstrate multiple skills associated with the discipline of history. It is very possible to learn all of this material and all of these skills in one year, but it is very difficult to try to cram everything in at the end once panic starts setting in around April.
That means, it is time to start thinking about the AP exam now! This will save you stress later on and set you up better for success.
Circa has a list of things you can do this fall to start preparing for the exam. Once you get into a good AP history routine, you won’t even have to think about doing all each of these steps.
Step 1: Organize Your Notes
As you are taking your notes—from class, from the textbook, etc—find a way to keep them organized in a way that works for you. Do you prefer everything typed up? On the cloud? In handwritten notes? It doesn’t matter what method you pick, just pick whatever works best to help you keep everything organized. Once you have picked a method, try to keep notes on the same topic in the same place. When you are studying, it doesn’t matter so much if your notes are from school or from the book—it matters that you can find your notes on the Industrial Revolution, for instance, all in one place.
Step 2: Create a Study Schedule
The AP is unlike most other high school courses in the sense that it is entirely cumulative from the first day of class. You can’t learn something in September and forget it after fall semester finals. Instead, you have to remember everything until May (or sometimes June!). To get in a good habit of remembering the material, review what you have learned periodically. Set a schedule to review your new notes at the end of the week, to review parts that you found confusing every 2 weeks, and to do a thorough review of your notes every month. This method will help you make sure that you are remembering previous content while your class is teaching you new content.
Step 3: Start a Review Sheet
The best way to go through your notes is to have a quick review sheet. This sheet should have the big-picture information of what will be crucial for the test: major names, dates, and events. You could even organize everything chronologically to help remember how one event led to another. By having this review sheet, you will be able to efficiently and regularly review the material for the test. If something is confusing during a review session, you can go back and reread your fuller notes on the subject. If everything is clear to you, you can then breeze through your review while keeping these names and dates at the front of your mind. This review sheet will then be ready for you to use in the spring, when your class starts studying more intensively for the test.
Step 4: Start Reading Essay Responses
The fall is the best time to read some practice essay responses. You might not know enough of the history content to be able to write practice essays yourself, but you can read the responses other students have written and see why graders decided to award the particular number of points that they did. Having a sense early on of how points are awarded on the exam will prepare you to write your own essays that match the exam’s expectations.
Step 5: Get a sense for the time and place!
Sometimes it is easiest to learn history when you already know a little something about it. If you have some spare time in the evening or over a weekend, watch a historical film or read a history book to get more knowledge of the time and place you are studying. Just having been introduced to the names and events can help you understand how everything fits together when you encounter the material in class. Plus, these more entertaining forms of history might remind you that this subject is interesting and worth learning, which can be easy to forget when you are worried about an exam.
We have put up plenty of posts to help you find great reads and great films related to all three AP history exams. You can start with the watchlists for AP Euro, AP US, and AP World.
Want more targeted prep?
Circa works with students to target their skills and AP knowledge before the exam.