In this video, we're going to go over 11 tips that you can use to
help you score a four or a five on your AP European History exam.
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By doing so, you'll get access to a few of our free practice questions
with detailed explanations to help you prepare for your AP Euro exam.
Without further ado though.
Let's jump into this video.
Our first tip when it comes to tackling AP Euro is to make
studying part of your daily routine.
The reality is that those who don't study history are bound
to repeat it and therefore those who are cramming for history the
night before are bound to fail it.
So it's really important for you to think about how you're going to plan
out your study schedule so that you can tackle this exam effectively.
According to Dr.
Yana Weinstein, cramming for a tests is actually much less effective than
pacing out your studying over the duration of a few days or weeks.
By cramming, it'll take you longer to actually learn things and
you'll retain less in the longterm.
Instead, build a habit of studying 15 to 20 minutes a day on your
AP Euro content so that you can stack that learning over time.
Building on that last tip, it's important for you to not just get into the habit of
rereading your notes or textbook when it comes to studying, this is not effective
studying, and it doesn't actually immerse you in the content that you are learning.
Studies show that simply rereading your notes typically take more time and result
in less durable long-term learning.
Mark McDaniel, co-author of the book, Make it Stick, found that students who
re-read their textbook showed absolutely no improvement versus the students
who had just read their textbook once.
So it's not helpful for you just to reread the units in AP Euro over and over again.
Instead get into the habit of building flashcards for key events or people
and creating charts that connect different events to one another
so that you can understand how everything connects to one another.
It's the application component of AP Euro, that trips up a
lot of students on the exam.
Tip number three is to think outside the facts.
Middle schools tend to teach students the wrong way when it comes
to learning things, because they simply teach students to memorize
key people or events that happened.
But the important thing, like we mentioned is to connect everything together.
So rather than just memorize the nitty-gritty details that your textbook
is telling you, try to come up with three to five key takeaways of major
themes that are happening in the historical period that you're learning.
By doing so, you'll be able to better relate these into your
essays later on when it comes to the free response and the DBQ section
of the AP European history exam.
This makes it more clear for your greater to see that you understand how everything
relates to one another, as opposed to use simply name dropping or date dropping
a particular thing that happened.
If you just name drop or date drop, you will not demonstrate to your
AP a greater that you're capable of forming a coherent argument, which is
a key point when it comes to scoring well on the free response section.
Tip number four is to try out the SQ3R method.
If you want more details on this method, we have an accompany resource
that you can check out in the link in the video description below.
This method stands for survey, question read, recall review.
If you need more details behind this effective studying method, be sure to
check out the LinkedIn article in the link in the video description below.
In it, you'll find a helpful link from Virginia Tech that
breaks down this study method.
Tip number five is to make sure that you are connecting,
connecting, and connecting.
As I've mentioned a few times in this video so far, it is vital for you to
connect the dots of people, events and things that are occurring in history.
This allows you to form that cohesive argument.
So a good suggestion that we have is to create flashcards for the key events
or terms that you just learned about.
Then from there, try to think about five to seven categories that you can
group all of these flashcards into.
You might potentially end up putting these flashcards into historical periods or
key events or some other categorization.
The reason why we do this is because it allows us to practice our grouping
around key things or events and as a result, it will allow us to feel more
confident when we're then asked to apply what we know about particular time
period, or theme or event to a particular situation in a free response question.
Before we head into tip number six, if you're finding this video helpful,
do us a favor and hit that like button below and also subscribe and
hit that notification bell to get more AP review content like this.
Tip number six is to create your own cheat sheet.
While you won't be able to actually bring this cheat sheet into your AP Euro
exam, this can be a great way for you to create a compact cliff notes version of
your study prep leading up to the exam.
In other words, when you only have that hour or so in the nights before
the exam, you can use this cheat sheet to refresh on the key things
that you know you have to focus on when it comes to mastering AP Euro.
We recommend starting this as early as possible, because then what you can
do is you can continue to add to it over the course of the school year.
So that by the end of it, you're going to have a very complete cheat
sheet that you can reference in those nights leading up to the exam.
If you need some guidance on how to create your own history cheat sheet,
be sure to check out the resource that we link in the accompanying blog
article and the video description below.
Tip number seven is to supplement your studies with a review
book or a review resource.
If you haven't already picked up a review book or your resource, these
can be a great place to go for another way of summarizing a key events or
just getting extra exposure to these sorts of questions that you can expect
on your AP European History exam.
In these sorts of resources, you're going to get practice questions as well
as detailed explanations that breakdown the different nuances of particular
things that are being asked of you.
If you're looking for online practice, Albert can be a great resource as we
provide hundreds of practice questions that are standards aligned to the AP
Euro exam, as well as free response questions and sample responses
to those free response questions.
So if you haven't already created your account, be sure to do
so after watching this video.
Tip number eight is to follow the model of test, study, test.
What we mean by this is to first assess where you're doing well and
where you could use some more work when it comes to AP Euro, you can use
a resource like Albert, which breaks things down by the topic area so that
you can see how you are doing on a particular key event or time period.
From getting this data, you'll be able to tell whether or not
you need to spend more study time to master this particular topic.
So for example, if you were to answer 10 questions and you only got three
or four of them right, you might want to spend a little more time on that
particular topic before moving on to the next section in your AP Euro study.
Tip number nine is to check out Hank's History Hour.
A great way to mix up your studying is to change the medium as to how
you're learning different things.
And so Hank's History Hour is a podcast that goes over all sorts
of different historical topics.
So what you can do is you can download some episodes related to European history
and then listen to them in your downtime.
Or maybe when you're going off to sleep or some other time period
that isn't your already dedicated time for European history.
Did you know that oftentimes it's what you've listened to as you're
falling to sleep, that you remember best when you first wake up?
Using this sort of method could be a great way for you to mix
up some of your study routines.
Building on Hank's History Hour, another approach to mixing up the
mediums for your AP Euro studying is to check out more videos on AP Euro.
Crash Course has a great list of videos related to European history
that you might find valuable in reviewing key events or concepts.
You might also find it helpful to check out our YouTube channel for more AP
Euro tips as we go over some strategies behind the multiple choice section,
as well as the free response section.
Our last general AP Euro study tip is to create flashcards along the way.
If there's ever a particular term or concept that you don't master the first
time around, then it can be helpful for you to create a study card on it.
On it, you're going to want to think about a pneumonic or heuristic that
you can use to turn to when trying to internalize this concept for later.
One way, for example, is to anchor on some sort of outrageous image in your
head so that you can easily recall it later on if you're being asked to
think about this particular concept.
Another great way to use these flashcards is by playing the timeline game.
What we recommend is to first create a series of flashcards of important
dates to AP European history.
Once you have this in place, you can create another set of flashcards that
has the event on one side, as well as the date of the event on the other side.
From there, get a couple friends together and then deal a few cards to each other.
For example, five to seven cards.
Once you've dealt the cards to your friends, put the remaining
cards into the draw pile.
And from there to have one player draw the top card and
place it down onto the timeline.
This will be the first event on the timeline.
From here, you guys can take one of the cards that's in your hand
and place it onto the timeline.
So you're either going to put it to the left or to the right of
the first event on the timeline.
And then what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to be able to
describe why you think it's before that timeline or after that timeline, and also
what the event was and its importance in terms of historical significance.
If you get the timeline right, you can place the card down, but if you get
the card wrong, you still place the card down, but you're going to have
to draw a new card from the draw pile.
The winner of the game is the person who is able to eliminate
all the cards from their hand.
If you want some more detailed guidance behind how to play this game, again,
check out our acccompanying blog posts and the link in the video description below.
There you have it 11 study tips when it comes to getting a four or a five
on your AP European History exam.
If you found this video helpful, do us a favor and hit that like button
below and also consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell to
get notified as to when we're going to release our follow on AP Euro
videos on multiple choice strategies, as well as free response strategies.
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to share it with them as well.
Lastly, if you haven't already done so, be sure to create your account
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That's it for this time though.
I'll catch you guys next time when we talk some more AP Euro
by shifting gears to talk about some multiple choice strategies.
In the meantime, though, be sure to check out these videos that
YouTube thinks you might like.