How to Prepare for an AP History Class

How can you be best prepared to take an AP History course? How can you walk into that classroom set up for success? How can you continue throughout the year, and ultimately be ready to ace the exam in May. The best way to prepare for an AP class is by preparing in advance…setting yourself up for success.

Starting Dates Matter

According to my research, about 15% of students have already returned to school in early August with about 60% of you going back in the by the end of August and a quarter of you will return to school after Labor Day. By the way, very interesting data that was published by Pew Research, if you’re a data or an infographic person. Anyway, you’re likely getting close to starting that AP course. By the way, the early starters really have an advantage over the after-Labor Day crew, since everyone has to take the exam at the same time, so you have a couple more weeks to prepare.

Textbooks

Textbooks are big and heavy and written at a college level. Some of them are pretty good, but they get a little narrative. You know? They sometimes have more information than what you really need. A good review book can help you get through the content by streamlining what you need to know. There is Princeton, Barron’s, 5 Steps to a 5, and AMSCO. AMSCO, some teachers use that more as a textbook. In my opinion, it is somewhere between a review book and a textbook. It is really no-frills. There is content, practice questions with no answers, and they address the skills throughout the book. Princeton and Barron’s are good because they also provide online content like practice tests with feedback. And they do summarize the content nicely. If you’re not sure which one you should get, check with your teacher and ask if they use or recommend one. If they don’t have a preference, see if you have a friend or classmate who has one that they aren’t using anymore.

Notebooks & Notetaking

Next, what about notes, notetaking, notebooks? Some teachers will tell you what they want you to do as far as taking notes and/or keeping a notebook. They have a reason for that, so I’d recommend sticking to your classroom teacher’s advice and hanging on for our next topic, which is themes in history. However, if you have some free choice regarding your notes, here’s my advice. Give some careful thought to how you learn best. As a visual learner, I much prefer to create mind maps. My second choice is outlines where I write the headings in bigger print and indent and use bullet points to take notes. Cornell Notes are super useful because they require you to create or answer questions and reflect on what you are learning in the process of reading and notetaking. There are a lot of right ways to take notes. But here is the wrong way: writing entire sentences and essentially just copying words out of a book. Read it. Think about it. Summarize it in short phrases.  Label all of your notes with chapters and/or key concepts from the curriculum. See last week’s show notes for links to the curriculum descriptions and key concepts for each course. If you want to get really organized, color code by unit. Either colored paper, colored tabs, or highlighters help you to go back and review a little easier. I like 3 ring binders a whole lot more than spiral notebooks or composition books because you can move things around, add to it, subtract from it. But if you use a spiral notebook or composition book, invariably, you’ll end up forgetting it and then you have this lose piece of paper that you add to the notebook, best case scenario, you glue it to blank pages, worst case scenario, you stick it in there and eventually it falls out somewhere and now it’s lost.  

As far as organizing the 3-ring binder, you can do it chronologically, in order of when you do the things. Or, use dividers for notes, handouts, test prep, and essay writing. Also, perhaps create an on-going timeline, since chronology is so important to all three history courses, and add to it as new topics are covered. Again, color coding the events based on the unit they happened in. Regardless of how you choose to organize it, set it up at the beginning and be willing to adjust to meet your needs.

Key Concepts Guide the Course

Key concepts are the important ideas that you need to know for the course, and they make up the curriculum. There are 9 units in each course and the number of key concepts varies by course and unit. These are the barebones, basic … uh…concepts, that will be on the test. It includes the people, the places, the changes, the causes, and effects of the course. If you are not sure what you really need to know, check out those key concepts, which are listed in the “units at a glance" section of the curriculum and exam description. You get the topic, the reasoning process, and the suggested skill. But if you keep paging through, you’ll find examples, learning objectives, and historical developments. Seriously, read these. Go to the table of contents of the curriculum and exam description, then click on where it lists the units and click on those. This is what all the AP Teachers should be using to teach the course and it’s what you should be using to preview and review the content.

A Thematic Approach

One theme that crosses all three AP History classes is People or Social or Society. This is the role that people play, but also the social classes that people are in and the jobs they do and so on. It allows you as the learner to see the connections across time and place and time period. So, I strongly encourage you to include the themes in your notetaking process, whether it’s highlighting them or putting them in the margin or in the left column of Cornell Notes. Looking for those themes in the content from the beginning will definitely give you an advantage when it comes to reading and analyzing documents and writing essays as an amateur historian.

Use AP Classroom

If you are enrolled in school for your AP History class, you should be given access to AP Classroom by your test coordinator or teacher. Now, don’t freak out if you don’t know what that is or haven’t heard of it yet. It takes a few weeks for the accounts to be set up. But look for or ask your teacher about access to AP Classroom. It is run by the College Board and provides a lot of great resources for you, the student. First, there are videos that go along with every Key Concept of the course. Truth be told, they are a bit dry and boring, but it may be worth watching them, especially if there is a particular topic that you are either struggling with or concerned that it wasn’t covered enough in class. Also, AP Classroom has practice questions, including the written types for every topic and unit. Your teacher will need to open those up for you, but many of my students swear by them. Think about it. This is the company that is making the AP exams. Their practice questions must be quite similar to the type of questions on the exams. So, the more exposure you get to them, the better. Plus, every once in a while, teachers might, use those questions on their class tests!

Get Organized!

The last of my suggestions for success in your AP class is some kind of planner to keep you organized. While you can use a generic planner to keep track of all of your courses and homework, I strongly suggest my AP Success Planner. You can see a few sample pages when you go to my website, APHistoryHelp.com. I have designed it specific to an AP History course, with attention to the historical thinking skills, the content and key concepts you are learning, and even a place to keep track of all the acronyms that we AP History teachers love to use. If used correctly, you’ll reflect on the content weekly and be aware of the skills you are practicing and even which documents you are reading and analyzing. You can order it on Amazon. They’ll have it sent to you in just a few days. I’ve even posted a video walking you through the planner and how to maximize each part of it to your advantage. Oh, and I sprinkled a little Wendy dust throughout, in the form of bonus pages with great information, similar to what I’ll cover over the next year of this podcast, like themes and content and the specific types of questions, the format of the AP exam, and so much more.

If you have decided that an AP history class is for you, stick with me. I’ve got your back.

Wendy is a veteran teacher with expertise in all things AP History. She offers courses, as well as individualized tutoring. She also hosts a bi-monthly podcast called APHistoryHelp. Learn more about the services she offers and the podcast by going to www.APHistoryHelp.com