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Part I
Using This Book to Improve Your AP Score
PREVIEW: YOUR KNOWLEDGE, YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Your route to a high score on the AP U.S. History Exam depends a lot on how you plan to use this book. Respond to the following questions.
Rate your level of confidence about your knowledge of the content tested by the AP U.S. History Exam:
A. Very confidentI know it all
B. Im pretty confident, but there are topics for which I could use help
C. Not confidentI need quite a bit of support
D. Im not sure
Write down your goal score for the AP U.S. History Exam:
5 4 3 2 1 Im not sure yet
What do you expect to learn from this book? Write down all that apply to you.
A. A general overview of the test and what to expect
B. Strategies for how to approach the test
C. The content tested by this exam
D. Im not sure yet
YOUR GUIDE TO USING THIS BOOK
This book is organized to provide as muchor as littlesupport as you need, so you can use this book in whatever way will be most helpful to improving your score on the AP U.S. History Exam.
The remainder of will provide guidance on how to use this book and help you determine your strengths and weaknesses.
, and its answers and explanations. (Bubble sheets can be downloaded here.) We strongly recommend that you take this test before going any further, in order to realistically determine
your starting point right now
which question types youre ready for and which you might need to practice
which content topics you are familiar with and which you will want to carefully review
Once you have nailed down your strengths and weaknesses with regard to this exam, you can focus your test preparation, build a study plan, and be efficient with your time.
of this book will
provide information about the structure, scoring, and content of the AP U.S. History Exam
help you to make a study plan
point you toward additional resources
of this book will explore the following strategies:
attacking multiple-choice and short-answer questions
writing effective essays
managing your time to maximize the number of points available to you
of this book covers the content you need for the AP U.S. History Exam.
, we recommend that you do both (with at least a day or two between them) so that you can compare your progress between the two. Additionally, this will help to identify any external issues: If you get a certain type of question wrong both times, you probably need to review it. If you only got it wrong once, you may have run out of time or been distracted by something. In either case, this will allow you to focus on the factors that caused the discrepancy in scores and to be as prepared as possible on the day of the test.