Hello everyone!

It’s AP season, and with the new test format I feel like everyone is more frantic than ever. I’ve just gotten into my crazy study mode and studying is going to be taking over a lot of my time for the next few weeks, so I figured I would share what I’m doing. I made a post like this not too long ago, but my plans have been modified due to the new test format, identifying my strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that I’m a little late to the game for studying AP Psych since I took the course online months ago and need more review. If you’re interested in learning about my study plan, keep on reading!

AP European History

• My teacher has been posting review videos each week hitting on some main points and questions that people have been emailing him, so I’m watching all of them and taking organized notes on a Google Doc. I’ve also been reading my notes weekly to see if I have any questions to email my teacher for him to address in these videos.
• I’m using my review book I bought at the beginning of the school year (The Princeton Review Cracking the AP European History Test), only the review chapters though. I’ve been doing the chapter drills and the multiple choice sections of practice tests as a way to judge my comprehension, but I haven’t done any of the writing practice from the book since there’s no point- even the DBQs are a different format.
• My teacher modified old AP test DBQ prompts to only have five documents and made up a couple of his own, so I’ve done two of those practices so far and plan to try and do a practice for each of the prompts he’s posted.
• I’ve watched every College Board YouTube review and taken notes on each one. I haven’t done the guided practice except for the full DBQs, since that’s the only thing actually being tested.

What I’m not doing:

• AP Classroom assignments. I did a couple at first, but my teacher doesn’t assign them/suggest we do them and none of them are the same as what the format of the test will be (even the DBQs are 7+ documents!) so I don’t think it’s an effective use of my time.
• Reading my textbook. Although I would do this for each unit test in the class, my notes are already a more effective summary for review at this point.

AP Psychology

• I’m reading through my review book I got at the beginning of the year (The Princeton Review Cracking the AP Psychology Test) and doing the chapter drills as well as all practice test material! The FRQs are the same format as what will be on the test, and the multiple choice is good to gauge my comprehension since I’m very rusty.
• I’m watching all the College Board YouTube reviews and taking dedicated notes on each. I’m actually doing most, if not all, of the guided practice for these since I think I could use any review I could get.
• I’m studying my Barrons AP Psychology flash cards I got at the beginning of the year. I’m also using the “Key Terms” list at the end of each chapter in the Princeton Review book and making my own Quizlets to really hammer in the terms.
• I’m going through the bank of old FRQs on the College Board’s website and practicing as many as I can.
• Making a content outline for test day with main concepts/people/vocab, etc. since I don’t have solid notes from the course to use on the exam.

What I’m not doing:

• I don’t have access to AP Classroom for Psych since I took the course online and I’m signed up under “test-only” through my actual school, so I’m not using it for this class either!
• Using a textbook- I never had one for the class since I took it online, and at this point my review book is much more helpful anyways.
• Using most/all of the resources from when I actually took the course. This is what’s making studying for this test so stressful for me- when I took the course online, we focused a lot more on multiple choice and simple vocabulary/concept mastery, so I don’t really have anything to go off of for FRQs.

I hope this helps anyone out studying for AP tests, especially if you’re in these specific AP classes. I wish you all the best in your studying, so good luck and get grinding! We’re all in this together, and hopefully testing goes smoothly even with all the changes.

Brooke