study2nite:This past year, I took AP World History, and when I first started out, I had absolutely n
study2nite:This past year, I took AP World History, and when I first started out, I had absolutely no idea how to manage it. As the year went on, it got harder, but I found what worked so my grades improved! So I would like to pass my wisdom on to you all.I’m going to divide everything into two parts: studying for the class and studying for the exam!Studying for the Class: DO your homework and do it the day it’s assignedI have a block schedule so we had 4 classes (out of 8) per day, so I could do the homework that day and study it the next day before I had the class againIf you don’t have a block schedule like I did, do the homework before any other class’s so you can review again before you go to sleepStudy everything your teacher provides for youie. study the reading provided, study handouts they provide, study any terms or guiding questions they provideOur sheets for taking notes had important terms and guiding questions at the top of them, so I would make sure I knew what they all meant and that I could answer those questions. If I couldn’t, I’d read through them againDon’t procrastinateI know how hard this is, because I wanted to a lot, but you’re going to have to do this homework and study eventually if you want a good grade, so use that to motivate yourself to just get it over withJust force yourself to sit down and startDon’t have any distractions whatsoever, stay off the internet using either a blocker, self control, or going in another roomUse a timer to pace yourselfMy notes would often take me 1.5 to 2 hours, so I would use the pomodoro timer to pace myself so I didn’t go insane, and it really helped me.Study by reading over past notes, looking at old quizzes, and quizzing yourselfTry formatting your notes into questions. If your notes say “The attack on Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941″ write on a different piece of paper “When was the attack on Pearl Harbor?” and do this for everything. This really helps you to be able to quiz yourself, because it shows how well you know the material.Study by explaining to othersWhat really helps me is either talking to myself or someone else while reading my notes. What I mean is going through my notes and reading them aloud in a way that explains them. If you can do this a few times, you’ll find that it sticks into your mind much more, because you got someone else to understand as well.Take advantage of youtube resourcesThere are a TON of youtube videos about World History topics. Before every test in my class, I would watch youtube videos reviewing the AP World History period we were studying. I also really took advantage of (and so did my teacher!) the Crash Course World History series when reviewing before tests and also for the AP Exam.If your class has essays, and you’re provided the prompt ahead of time, write an outline of the topics you’ll use and what examples you’ll useKnow what you’ll use to get each point on your essayIf there’s any extra credit, DO IT!My teacher gave us huge packets before each test, and if we completed the majority of it, we’d get a huge curve on the exam which was sooo amazing.It’s easy to be lazy, but if you end up with an 89.4 and you need that extra boost, your teacher is going to be more likely to help you if you did all of the extra credit possible.If you’re feeling burnout kicking in, relax a littleThis means you’re studying way too much, give yourself more time to do other things like extracurriculars and to just relax.Tone down your studying, because I was burnt out sometimes, and if you force yourself to keep over-studying, it will make you miserable.You don’t have to go crazy, this class is not as big a deal as it seems right now so relax. Of course studying is important, but it’s more important that you’re happy while studying.Studying for the AP Exam!Review all of your notes from the past yearIf your teacher gave you reviews before tests, review those even more because they usually show the most important information to know about that time period.Review old testsGo into tutoring and ask your teacher if you can look at your old tests, to review questions that could show up on the AP exam, and to see where you struggled and areas you need to improve in.Predict the essay prompts!Look up the old essay prompts over the years and look at the trends to see what hasn’t been asked about in a while in terms of geographic location and theme. eg. Latin America and economy, or Western Europe and culture.Start studying second semester while you’re learning the newer materialDon’t go crazy, just slowly look over your notes and reviews, quiz yourself, make sure you can explain the topics to someone else.Review the essay rubrics and how the points are distributedIt’s important to know where the points come from so you can be obvious that you’re aiming for a certain pointEssay tip: be painfully obvious you want a point, don’t leave it to the grader to interpret, say “this caused this because,” or “this was a continuity of this because,” etc.Don’t stressAs long as you’ve been reviewing the material and the essay formats, you WILL pass! You WILL do well! It’s not as scary as it seems. I was terrified before and afterwards I felt a lot better.I hope this has helped anyone needing help studying AP World History, I know you’ll all do wonderfully so don’t stress and be confident in yourselves! <3 -- source link