AP exams are more than just a battery of tests! They are a means by which you can demonstrate college readiness, attain advanced placement for courses, and possibly save on tuition. While AP exams cover a wide range of topics and can be challenging in format and subject content, it is clear that you cannot cram the night before! The only solution to success on an AP exam is to prepare for it well in advance by managing your time, energy, and focus. The candidate has to develop an organized study plan. Below are some steps to help you create a study plan for your specific AP exam and workflow.
Step 1: Know the Exam Format
The first step in preparing is identifying what is coming up. Each AP exam format is different. Some exams will have many multiple-choice questions while others will have many documents, essays, and/or free-response questions. Be sure to go to the College Board website and view the official exam content, including format, timing, and topic content. The exam content will assist you to identify what is emphasized more when you are taking an exam. For example, The AP U.S. History exam will depend heavily on your ability to write and when it comes to the AP Calculus exam, you will need to demonstrate fast, yet precise problem solving skills.
Step 2: Setting Goals
Your study plan should reflect your target score and the colleges you want to attend. Many competitive colleges will look favorably on a score of 4 or 5. First, access where you currently are—take a diagnostic practice test to see what your score is at. Then set realistic but lofty goals. For example, if you are at a score of 3, then your study plan should focus on strategies to get to a 4 or better.
Step 3: Develop Your Timeline
A well-structured timeline is essential to avoid burnout and to allow for incremental progress. It would be ideal to begin planning at least 3 – 4 months before your exam date. Allow the Planning Timeline Set of Practice Dates to assist you in dividing this timeframe into stages:
Month 1: Review notes, textbook resources, and any other course materials to establish a working knowledge background.
Month 2: Begin practice questions, flashcards, and fill in any gaps in the mindmap.
Month 3: Timed practice tests to simulate the experience of a real exam.
Remaining two weeks: Continue to review, memorize equations, and understand how they will be used, and enhance overall testing strategies.
By segmenting the preparation phase, you will be able to improve retention of knowledge week by week instead of cramming and taxing your brain simply to try to recall the knowledge when you need it.
Step 4: Utilizing the Right Study Materials
Not every study material is the same. Use study materials that fit the AP curriculum:
Official College Board Materials: You can’t go wrong with practice exams and sample questions from the source itself.
AP Prep Books: Barron’s and Princeton Review offer comprehensive guides keyed to each subject.
Digital Tools: Whether you decide to use an app like Quizlet for flashcards or decide to use Khan Academy for a video lesson on a specific subject matter, digital tools abound.
Class Notes & Teacher Resources: Don’t forget about the resources you have in your classroom.
Using different resources helps you get a more balanced preparation and prevents you from depending too much on one resource.
Step 5: Active Learning vs Passive Learning
Just reading won’t necessarily yield results. Use active learning strategies to retain more knowledge than simply reading:
- Timed essays, particularly with the humanities exam.
- Multiple practice sets for math and science subjects.
- Teaching concepts to someone else, or even verbally explaining it to yourself.
- Passive learning techniques (e.g. passing notes again, or watching videos) should be supplementary and improve the quality of your active practice.
Step 6: Prioritize Your Weaker Skills
Dragging along the past knowledge you already have can be tough to resist, but the most progress we make arises from working on our weaknesses. Use your diagnostic test results and self-inventory to determine your weak areas. For example, you may have done well in multiple choice but did poorly in writing the free response. If this is the case, spend a few hours practicing essays. If you want to improve your free response answers, that practice will result in an overall stronger score.
Step 7: Develop Healthy Study Habits
If you want to pass your AP assessments, working hard is important, however, it is not only working hard that is important—developing study habits that you can maintain over time is an important part of the process.
- Remember to Limit your Breaks: try pomodoro style work, 25 minutes of work and a 5-minute break.
- Keep Organized: Write a list of topics or units and check off things as you are able to accomplish them.
- Build Balance: Stay healthy through eating well, sleeping and exercise.
All of these are related ways to keep you mentally sharp.
Burnout and fatigue are real forms of mental impairment, so therefore balance in your life is just as important as the effort you put forward.
Step 8: Practice, Review, and Reflect
Regular practice tests are essential for examining your gaps in knowledge and mistakes. The full-length practice exams help to build your exam stamina to ensure you are prepared on exam day. Take the time to review all of your mistakes and understand why you made that mistake. The reflection will help ensure that you do not make those same mistakes again on exam day!
Final Thoughts
The secret for mastering AP exams is not studying hours and hours–it’s studying smart. When you understand the exam, have test-taking goals, a study plan with a timeline, and practice, you can help ensure your success. The journey through the AP exam prep is an experience that is going to help you with perseverance and time management, which you will find helpful even after high school.
How The Princeton Review Can Help for Effective AP Study Plan
Although self-study has its virtue, there are advantages to having an expert show you the way to mastery of the AP exams. The Princeton Review has ample experiences preparing students for standardized tests, and they offer content that fits rather nicely into the AP courses.
Here’s how The Princeton Review can support you:
- Plans tailored to your needs: Study plans that chart the week-hour-by-hour based on your strengths, interests, and desired target score.
- Expert tutorial resources: Expert instructors who can simplify complex concepts as well as provide the optimal test-taker strategies that have been vetted over generations of testing.
- Practice resources: Full-length AP practice tests, with a bank of questions, and online test-simulated drills.
- Flexible study options: Live online classes, live in-person classes, or online prep courses at your pace.
- Score improvement assurance: Structuring in a way that is relevant to your AP score increase opportunities and what has developed the best potential for admission into college.
By balancing your disciplined study regimen with the excellent tools and support of The Princeton Review, you will have a thorough and complete preparation approach that allows the confidence and success you want on the test day.