GRWM: the advice for APs you need to hear

This is the AP advice I would give coming from someone who's gotten fives on all seven of her exams. First, succeeding with APs is not just about knowing the content. It's about knowing the exam. And that might sound a little bit weird because you're probably thinking like, well, why isn't me just knowing the material enough? But I think for APs, you really have to know what AP is looking for and that's going to help you succeed so much. For example, AP Euro and APUSH, all the history APs, they have specific guidelines and they have a rubric for their free response questions. And the closer that you follow that rubric, the more you're going to succeed. And AP scores a lot differently than your teachers probably do. They score on like a seven, you know, point rubric. So you get a point for your thesis, you get a complexity point, etc. You can study this more for each specific AP you're taking. I'm going to start doing a series where I talk about each AP, so stay tuned for that. But yeah, knowing what you need to do to succeed is one of the best things that you can do for AP because the more that you know, the exam and know what you have to do, the better prepared you'll be. Having early and frequent access to what the AP exam actually looks like is going to prepare you so much. Trust me, the APs that I've practiced with over and over again, I knew exactly what to expect. Lastly, when it comes to time for the exam, focus more on your active recall and your practice than on passive content review. Watching videos and using outside sources can be super helpful for practicing for APs, but make sure that you're doing something to really like take in that information. For APUSH last year, I would make flashcards while I watched time-lapse videos so that whatever key terms that he was talking about, I would write them down so I had them to review later. Honestly, in my opinion, doing practice is better than any content review you could have. Obviously, you know your content, but like doing practice, MCQs, doing FRQs, practicing, brainstorming evidence for those, that is the stuff that will really help you because you're focusing on your active recall and what you actually know. And then those tests can help you figure out what your content gaps are and what you do need to review. But if you just start to review everything, it's not going to work. So yeah, early on this year, I would say it's in your best interest to figure out your exam early on so that you can be practicing all throughout the year. So figure out the rubric for each of your courses, figure out, you know, common practice things that you can use. I'm going to be starting a series talking more about APs and more about specific APs and specific advice for all of them. So let me know if you have anyone you want me to go over first. And I wish you guys the best of luck in your AP journey next year. Love you. Bye.