7 hours, how to study?

April 30, 2008 5:24 AM

I have the day to study for AP exams and prepare a presentation. How can I spend it most effectively?

I have two AP exams to study for: Calculus BC and European History. I don't know half the concepts in Calc BC, because I decided around two weeks ago that I would take it instead of AB. I'm confident that I can learn it, if I knew what to study. European History, I'm a bit more worried about. I don't know what to expect on the test and I don't know how to study a history book.

I also have a presentation that I'm delivering in my Theory of Knowledge class on Friday. I have the slideshow made; I just need to make a 15-minute presentation to accompany it.

I have around 7 hours to do all of these.

posted by LSK to education (12 comments total)

Prepare now to not do well. I say that in all honesty. AP exams are not just "another test", it's something you prepare for over the course of an entire semester. You barely have enough time to cover broad outlines of the material they will expect you to know front to back. Prepare to get low scores in both of them.

That being said, my best advice would be to spend the entire time at a location that does not allow you to become distracted. Perhaps go to the library if you have a laptop (or I'm sure they have computers, although they probably have restrictions on usage for 7 hours). The presentation is the easy part, you have a slideshow, just script out what you're going to say, make notecards and practice it a few times outloud. This shouldn't occupy more than 30 minutes of your time, and don't let it. Spend the majority of your time studying for the exams.

Here are practice AP Calc exams to study from
Other resources from CollegeBoard

Good luck...
posted by genial at 5:40 AM on April 30, 2008

To clarify: I did have a full year of AB, and of European History. The latter, I just don't know how to study.
posted by LSK at 5:55 AM on April 30, 2008

There are a few differences between the AB and BC Calc exams, though most of it should look familiar from your AB class. Go to the library or a bookstore and look at a test prep book to see the differences.
As for Euro, if you haven't taken a course, don't take the exam. It is fact-based and something you can't cram for in a day. If you have been taking the course but just don't know what to study, look over your notes, especially timelines. Or again, get to a test prep book which will include more summaries than your standard school book.

In my opinion as someone who works in test prep, you should just register for the AB exam, spend your time reviewing what you've already learned, and forget about Euro.
posted by rmless at 6:12 AM on April 30, 2008

Yes, run to the bookstore and grab one of the many test-prep books for the BC exam. They usually explain the concepts and give you practice problems. It's also essential to familiarize yourself with the format and scoring of the AP tests if you haven't already.
I also gree that opting for the AB might be a good option (most colleges still give you credit).
posted by supramarginal at 6:19 AM on April 30, 2008

Learning BC calc on your own in 7 hours, especially if you plan on getting a 3 or 4, is no small feat. Really, it is not something I'd recommend. If I were you, I'd stick to doing the presentation for the grade you want, and study the AB and EH enough to get a 4, forgoing the BC.
Actually, this is really game theory. Without BC, you have x% of getting 4's. Adding BC into the mix, your chances of getting 4's are reducing by y because you now have that much less time to study for AB & EH and to devote to your project.

Also, y'all should have been taking practice AP tests in class to gauge where you're at and where to study. Have you been?

If you're really gung-ho, get all the practice BC exams you can. I found the AP Calc exams, more than any other, took questions and theories from previous tests and regurgitate them. Won't be exact numbers obviously, but math's really about concepts anyways. On top of what you find online, there's also practice books at bookstores (libraries?).
For EH, it's simply a matter of knowing the facts. Either you've read and memorized or you haven't. Each person's different and I was able to just read the book straight through and be fine (AP US was like 1100 pages, so not sure how viable that is in your time frame). I'm not sure about EH, but AP US have DBQs. If you haven't been doing those, you're in a world of hurt and get on learning materials ASAP.

In our AP US classes, we also looked at previous essay and DBQ topics and based off those, we took chances on what would be on this year's exams. For instance, if last years asked about unions, we took a chance that an essay wouldn't be on this years. The theory is that AP history exams like to ask different questions each year. After analyzing previous exams, we narrowed it down to 5 possible topics. 4 of them were on the exam. Obviously, YMMV.

Wait, I'm confused! The AP Calc exam isn't until the 7th EH the 9th.
If that is the case, you can definitely get the BC material in 7 days. Go get those practice exams and do the questions over and over until you know the concepts and get ace every question. It's how I learned college CalcII in a week...

Ah crap, do you mean 7 days, not 7 hours?
posted by jmd82 at 6:22 AM on April 30, 2008

For the AP tests, lots of practice exams. The exams don't change much from year to year. Figure out what kind of questions they ask and what kinds of answers they look for. For the BC calc exam, the big thing you're not going to know from AB is series and I found it was pretty easy to learn how to answer AP questions on series despite not understanding them fundamentally. Go ahead and take the BC exam because even if you mess it up, you'll still get an AB subscore. Also, if you don't have one already, see if you can borrow a TI-89. It has a pretty small learning curve and it makes the calculator section of the BC exam basically trivial.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:46 AM on April 30, 2008

For your history test you're going to need more than 3.5 hours to study if you intend to do well. The multiple choice tests are designed to trick you up. I both got a 5 on the US history test and know a test writer for the US & European history tests. You'll get a lot of "all of the above, some of the above, none of the above" questions, and those that aren't will mostly be half-truths that you have to be able to eliminate (the best example that I still remember was for a question about Haymarket Square: one of the answers was something like "It was a tragedy in Chicago that killed hundreds," and it wasn't the right answer because it had only killed dozens -- these are the kinds of details you need to know). The history multiple choices have a bonus in that you might not be able to free recall a detail, but you can recognize it if you see it. So study hard and study a lot, but personally I think it's easier than math where you actually have to be able to come to the right answer on your own (says the math-illiterate history major). Practice tests will be invaluable.

When I studied for my history test, my class reviewed everything thematically: women's history, slavery, etc. This is invaluable, since you need to be able to connect things to one another. My teacher just gave us a list of people/events/concepts and made us fill in the blank space. If I remember right, the US history test was focused more heavily on wars than on social history. Studying on my own I sat down at the library for a day, took out a bunch of paper, and made a timeline. It was extremely time consuming, but it let me quiz myself on what I knew and it helped connect things in order rather than thematically. If I had to point to one thing, I'd say the timeline was what made me get a 5.

PM me if you want any more help/tips.
posted by lilac girl at 6:59 AM on April 30, 2008

I took both of those exams senior year. I spent about a week studying for the Euro exam and attempted last minute cramming a day in advance of Calc BC. I hadn't learned to balance intensive studying and calc fell by the wayside... I've aced every standardized test I've ever taken, except for Calc BC. I got a 2. My week of studying earned me a 5 on Euro.

I created piles of detailed flashcards for Euro and cycled through them until I could regurgitate the needed information without actually thinking. I absolutely hate this strategy, but I've learned that it can be very effective for history and language courses. I also wrote many practice essays on historical trends of personal interest to tie everything together in my mind and prepare myself for the essays. I shunned studying strategically because I felt I had enough time to study comprehensively, but you should take jmd82's advice about narrowing down topics. I used practice exams to get a feel for the questions, but did not rely on them as memorization tools.

I tried formula flashcards and practice exam problems for Calc, and I was starting to get some traction when I ran out of time. It was frustrating to sit for the test with the realization that I wasn't going to do very well. I had this half-complete circuit in my head and I was trying to wire the missing connections and test everything after I'd already started inputting signal. Six years later, I have a B.S. in Physics; I don't think my poor performance was due to lack of ability. Colleged calc I and II were incredibly tedious for me, and I often bemoaned not pulling it together for Calc BC, but I was glad for the extended review when I hit vector calc and PDE's sophomore year.

I know a number of people who find some aderol when they need to sit down and concentrate under pressure for long periods of time.

RE: jm82's question. Yeah, if you have seven days and you can devote at least two or three hours a day to studying, you're probably ok.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 7:12 AM on April 30, 2008

Derive, could you give an example of the sort of flashcards you made?
posted by LSK at 7:51 AM on April 30, 2008

Okay, if there's one question I think I can answer pretty well, it's how to study for APs. I took twelve of 'em back in my day. By the time I was a senior I would not buy any study book that wasn't the Princeton Review. I got burned hard by both REA and Barron's review books; my classmates and I found Princeton to be the company that most successfully predicted what would be on the test. This may have changed in the last few years, however; you should see what the nerds at your school are carrying these days. However, I'd say if you want one company to avoid, it's REA...they completely misled me on what I needed to understand for Physics B and I will never forgive them for it. I digress.

I've taken both of the exams you're asking about. I for one would not have signed up to take the BC exam after a year of AB class, but if you treat the Princeton like a textbook and do tons of example problems (this is key) you will probably figure out what's lurking behind those formulas. Formula flashcards are not the way to go, though, except for very specific memorization cases. You've got to actually get the concepts figured out and understand how to do every type of problem. Bone up on those solids of revolution, a lot of other concepts come for free if you get those down to the point where they're boring. I'm really not sure you'll be able to do that before the AP.

I was lucky enough to have an insanely hard euro teacher, so I went into the AP with a ton of study materials I'd prepared for his tests, including literally hundreds of flashcards. These flashcards were mostly names, places, and historical concepts and items (eg mercantilism, industrial revolution, steam engine, etc). I had to make them anyway because our tests included typically 20-40 Jeopardy-style fill in the blank questions, followed by an essay; if you didn't memorize terms pretty diligently you were basically up a creek. I also sat down with my book, notes, and prep book and made a timeline that got up to I think 11 pages. It helped to put personally meaningful dates in there to anchor the historically meaningful ones.

I think if you make the Princeton Review your religion between now and the tests you ought to be able to pass (in other words, if you had plans to leave your house this weekend, scrap 'em). If you understand your calc AB class pretty well and calc has come easily to you in general, you might pull off a 5 there - although I think the curve is much less forgiving on that exam because a lot of people are very good at calculus. The euro curve is kinder but you should definitely know your stuff, and I'm concerned that you say after a year of class that you don't know how to study a history book. That's what your class should have taught you.
posted by crinklebat at 8:14 AM on April 30, 2008

LSK: Regarding flashcards... Crinklebat has good advice above. I developed a standard format for the information on the back of a card. For instance, a person card would list lifespan, occupation, nationality/affiliation, and a bunch of other standard info before I started throwing in useful, non-categorical stuff. An event would list exact time period, then era, important people involved, larger events surrounding the event, smaller events encompassed by the event, and then freeform info. Man, I made a lot of flashcards...
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 9:24 AM on April 30, 2008

Yeah, the underlying strategy to my flashcards was to get them to heavily reference each other in addition to providing info relevant to the card so that I wasn't simply memorizing individual bits of info.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 9:30 AM on April 30, 2008