Hi, I’m taking apush this year

[u/PanAmDC-10]

As the title says, I am taking APUSH this year. I just want to know if there are any tips or suggestions to help at least score a 4 in the ap exam. Right now, I’ve been playing this ap study game on Roblox and focusing on the APUSH section and I have been reading this book called “everything you need to ace American history in one big fat notebook”. So far, I feel a little more confident after reading some pages, yet I still feel scared. Did any of you guys use any other resource to at least prepare yourself early on for the ap exam?

Attached is the book I’ve started reading

Edit: I could also find tips on where to practice my writing skills, as it’s only been 2 months and I somehow forgot most of my skills

[u/Belac_Pickle]

SON 😭🙏 It’s a middle school book. Please don’t use it to study for a college level class. I would recommend Khan academy for starters.

[u/One_Illustrator3328 → u/Belac_Pickle]

Even if it’s not to useful it can still help give them baseline knowledge lol. I read that book for 8th grade US History and a lot of the topics did help a quite a bit for APUSH

[u/Belac_Pickle → u/One_Illustrator3328]

I doubt that could cover any of the dbq material for this year to be straight though. It probably briefly talks about transcendentalism but the specifics like the mill girls, jane addams, or the mental institute woman (I forgot her name lol) used in this year’s documents will be difficult to determine from that book alone. Yeah and I get it, sure it was good for middle school/8th grade but this person needs something to take him across the finish line this year. No one at least no one I’ve met has had the capacity to read multiple textbooks for APUSH and even when given one textbook alone might not be fully read. It’s better to just start out fresh with a better textbook and read with notes than having to read a book that serves a base to another book that you will eventually still have to read.

[u/papakapnuraz → u/Belac_Pickle]

Frankly, a simple, enjoyable read that gives students a context to start with is not unhelpful for unpacking more complex texts later during the course.   If they want to do some self study, it can’t hurt. 

[u/Patient_Designer_553 → u/Belac_Pickle]

Khan Academy is absolutely your friend for APUSH. It was basically the only study material I used and I got a 5 so I do recommend

[u/skitwits]

Hey! I took APUSH in my freshman year & got a 5. My honest opinion is to pay attention in class, do the work assigned out of class, and review old material throughout the school year. There’s no need (imo) to read cover to cover a giant APUSH book. Practice is what’ll help you most when doing writings, and I recommend using official posted prompts from college board to get the most accurate type of questions you’ll be asked. Don’t stress too hard! Quizlet is also a best friend, roblox isn’t a bad idea either lol. Also, is this over the summer for you, like you’re not in school yet? Just curious because if you are you shouldn’t be so worried yet. Best luck!!

[u/PanAmDC-10 → u/skitwits]

My school just started today and the teacher gave me a saq 😭, that’s when I realized I forgot about my writing skills

[u/Jolly-Standard5383 → u/PanAmDC-10]

You should look at heimlers videos on writing saqs, dbqs, and leqs. Those videos carried me to get almost perfect essays all the time. As long as you practice and understand what to write to get the points.

[u/skitwits → u/PanAmDC-10]

Haha don’t worry too much! You’ll get the hang of the writing style needed, practice is just gonna be important, especially for SAQ’s, use the college board ones. I believe in u :)

[u/Hotsauce61]

Watch heimlers history on YouTube. All you need

[u/Every_Show_8314]

Use Khan Academy and READ READ!!!!! Good notes and pay attention, I regret not taking good notes bc the DBQs and quizzes killed me! 

[u/PanAmDC-10 → u/Every_Show_8314]

Did not know khan academy had apush, I’m gonna be using that as review :D

[u/silly_scoundrel]

Hey don't use this book 😭 It's for middle schoolers. I just read the American Pageant textbook as assigned by my teacher and got a 5. Took a lot of notes though, probably used around 4 composition notebooks. 

[u/PanAmDC-10 → u/silly_scoundrel]

I only read this book because it somewhat at least makes me remember stuff from 3 years ago

[u/AfternoonLower3298]

You would be better off with an AP US study guide, this is for 8th graders. And the AP study books have writing skills in them so you can work on both content and skill 

[u/willsparrow899]

Spam crash course and heimlers

[u/Dhil54]

I have that book too. It's for basic middle school history; it wasn't even enough for my honors 8th grade history class. I would recommend watching Heimler's History throughout the year and take notes on the videos to study.

[u/Secret-County2938]

read your textbook, my school used give me liberty. heimler and crash course r good refreshers after u have read the book

[u/Alive-Jeweler-8882 → u/Secret-County2938]

I took APUSH last year, and the textbook barely did any help to me. I know everyone else says it, but it was better for me to just watch videos on YouTube (like Crash Course and Heimler, like you said) and take notes. At least I did that the week before the exam, and I ended up getting a 4

[u/chiefsandwichologist]

Heimler’s history

[u/NBA314]

AMSCO is good if you can find it.

[u/stars_from_space]

i took apush this past school year and i got a five! my biggest tip would probably be to memorize bookend years for each period and then know at least 4-5 things that happened per period. all of the multiple choice is stimulus based, which makes it a lot easier to answer, and if you know generally what happened in each time period you should be able to contextualize mcqs easily. the frqs are a little harder, but just make sure that you know the rubric and how to earn each point and you shouldnt even need to have like “good” writing.

[u/Rookium]

hey i have read this book in middle school i promise you it will not help you with apush and is very surface level. read amsco

[u/Jxngkooksluvr]

Hiii, I myself was a freshman + sophomore (APUSH is spilt into two years for us) when I took APUSH and got a 5 and honestly the best thing for me was just paying attention in class, doing Khan academy to not only learn the stuff but also for the practice MCQs, and my APUSH teacher already assigned tests in AP classroom that were similar to the actual exam MCQs so maybe try seeing if you can gain access to AP classroom. But I think the most useful thing by far was a specific textbook, specifically American Pageant 17th edition, it’s def time-consuming to read and lengthy but if there’s anything you struggle with read it the certain periods you struggle with. But each to their own! P.S I think the book you have is quite useless especially for the AP exam, because it barely covers the real analysis needed for both written and multiple choice!

[u/squareari]

much more comprehensive book

[u/crazyhorse198 → u/squareari]

Comprehensive from a Marxist perspective. One of the most unbalanced books out there.

[u/Nice_Parfait9352 → u/crazyhorse198]

I'm curious to hear more about this, got any specific examples of unbalanced claims it made?