Less than Three Weeks until AP Exams
All AP exams are scheduled through Monday May 2, 2022 until Friday May 13, 2022. B2A is here to help provide some studying strategies, so you feel more confident come test day!
Hopefully, your teachers have already begun reviewing material in class and you have started studying on your own. If you have not already checked, the first thing you should be doing to prepare for your AP Exams is figuring out exactly when they are scheduled. Click here for the dates and times of each.
Once you know when your AP exams are scheduled, you can start organizing your time to study for your exams and complete all other assigned work. Utilize a planner, Google Calendar, or MyStudyLife to coordinate AP study time, homework for other classes, extracurriculars, and other time commitments you may have. If it seems too overwhelming to use a calendar or planner, try creating a to do list instead.
Relearn & Review Content THEN Practice Testing
You will not perform well on your exams if you do not know the material well.
So, before you complete any practice questions or tests, review content from the course.
It is best to start from the beginning and work your way through the material you last studied. There are multiple ways you can review for your exams! You may want to combine more than one of the suggested methods below:
Rereading and highlighting the notes you took in class,
Rereading the textbook,
Rewatching Daily review videos from your Collegeboard classroom,
Utilizing a quick review study guide, or
Watching Daily reviews from AP’s Youtube Channel.
*AP Languages
For AP languages, one of the best things you can do to prepare for the listening and speaking portion is practice speaking in the language as much as possible. You may want to practice with friends or find a tutor. Maybe schedule an hour or two at the mall with a friend and only speak in the foreign language with one another. It can also be helpful to record yourself speaking and play the recording to determine if you can catch any pronunciation mistakes you may need to work on.
*AP Lectures on Youtube
If you haven’t already, you should check out AP Daily: Live Review videos on YouTube. AP Daily: Live Review is a series of review sessions, hosted by AP teachers from across the country, created to help students practice and prepare for the 2022 AP Exams. Live sessions will be held Monday - Thursday April 18th-28th and review sessions from last year are available now. A great way to make extra time to study is to have the videos playing in the background while doing chores or activities that require less mental concentration- such as folding the laundry!
*Quick Review Study Guides
B2A recommends Princeton Review or Barron’s study guides, both of which offer complete content review and multiple practice tests.
Review the Format of the Exam on Collegeboard and Complete a Practice Test
Once you have reviewed the material, set aside some time over the weekend to complete a practice test from Collegeboard’s website. Review the rubric for open response questions found on Collegeboard’s website and grade yourself, or have a B2A tutor provide you with feedback and a score based on the AP Rubric. If you do not score well, you may need to spend more time reviewing. A B2A tutor can help you identify what material you may need to study more to improve your results on the real exam.
Try completing the practice exam under similar conditions for the real test.
For instance, if you are studying for AP Psychology, there are two sets of Free Response Questions from the 2021 exam provided on CollegeBoard’s website. There are also multiple choice and open responses from the 2020 exam. On the day of the exam you will have 50 minutes to answer each set of open response questions with a break in between. So when you practice make sure you set aside 2 hours to complete. Time yourself 50 minutes for each response.
The instructions for the Open Response questions say that credit will only be earned for what is written in a separate Free Response booklet. So when you are taking your practice test, write in a separate notebook which can serve as your Free Response booklet. You are also instructed to begin your response on a new page and fill in the circle at the top to indicate the question number. Practice doing this in your notebook as well. By taking the practice exams under the same conditions of the real test, you’ll feel more comfortable and prepared come test day!
Review Exam Policies to Prepare for Exam Day
No matter what test you are taking, it is always good practice to review exam policies and guidelines before the day of the exam. Since you may feel anxious on exam day, you may not hear all the instructions the proctor relays.
For instance, CollegeBoard has a strict policy against disclosing information in any unauthorized way. This means your score can be canceled if you talk about a multiple-choice question with your friends or your teacher during the exam break or discuss a free-response question right after the exam.
Taking a science or math test such as Calc AB or Physics? Then you should make sure to review the calculator policy to determine:
If a calculator is allowed and if so, how many;
What types of calculators are allowed; and
Which sections you can use the Calculators on.
And don’t forget to make sure you come prepared to take the exam! The day before the exam check that you have everything you may need such as: a watch without internet access, no. 2 pencils, a black or dark blue pen, and, if you are taking the exam at a different school than the one you regularly attend, a government or school issued ID.
Schedule a 1:1 Tutor Session with a B2A Counselor!
B2A offers 1:1 tutoring for students to help you review test content, identify troublesome areas, and teach effective strategies for answering tricky questions. Click here to schedule an appointment with one of our professional tutors today!
