AP Nerderie

Where we nerd (and take APs). Ask.

[apnerderie]

hi! im working on my apush summer assignment and I'm answering some guided reading questions. what would you say is the format I should use to answer it? right now I'm doing a numbered list to answer them. should I press return and separate with paragraphs? please help me out thank you so much! xx

Hey! So I took a bit of time off Tumblr (if you couldn’t tell) and it refuses to tell me when you asked this, so I don’t know if this is helpful, but here goes nothing.

I’m not sure what your teacher wants, so I’d personally ask other students and/or the teacher himself if that’s possible, but if there’s no specified format, yes, I’d do a numbered list and separate each question with a line in between.

[apnerderie]

Tips for Studying for the AP Bio Exam

Go through your review materials and make a list of everything you need to know.

Highlight everything you don’t know.

Study it!

There’s a lot of material to know, but don’t be overwhelmed! A lot of people say that it’s super difficult/more difficult than other APs, but just stick to the basics, don’t assume they know anything while you’re writing your FRQs, and remember that it’s probably no harder than APUSH. And if you’re still stressed out: it’s graded on a curve, so you’ll do fine.

[secretsciartarchive]

Sea Turtle Embryological Development

[apnerderie]

Remember that comparing the embryological development of different organisms can provide clues to evolution and common ancestry!

[ambition-ismyfolly]

AP LANG AND COMP TEST ADVICE!! TRUST ME, MY TEACHER IS AN AP READER

Do NOT term drop in your essays. Don’t use anaphora, don’t use ethos, don’t use pathos. Use yours words. Term dropping just shows the AP reader that you don’t know how to describe rhetorical devices in your own words. “The author uses pathos to…” will never sound as eloquent as “The author evokes feelings of sadness from the read to…”

Don’t be wordy. “In order to” can easily be shortened to “to”.

Get to the point. On average, an AP grader spends 60 seconds on each essay, which ties back in to this: DO. NOT. BE. WORDY.

MC choices are divided into 5 categories, one for each choice:

The Weird Word. This is the word you’ve never heard in your life that they bring up once every five years to throw you off. This is not the answer.

The Jaguar. This is the one that looks like the fancy car. It’s ALMOST the answer. But really, it’s just a big animal waiting in the bushes to eat you.

The Throw-Away. This is the first answer you eliminate that you know for sure isn’t the answer.

The Distractor. The question that is true of one part of the test but completely false for the section they are pointing to.

The actual answer.

You can get a 7 on all three essays and a 69% on the multiple choice and still achieve a 5 according to the highly-accurate AP calculator.

Don’t skip to the questions on the MC. The passages are deceiving if you merely skim them.

Recognize satire. Not everything is meant literally.

Remember that the MC section contains questions of a range of difficulty. There are questions on the tests that only 20% of students will get right. And guess what? That 20% is just the percentage that guessed better than you.

Employ a higher level of thinking in your essays. Don’t read the prompt at face-value if you want an essay score above a 6. 7,8 and 9’s are given to testers who display a deeper understanding of the authors purpose.

[apnerderie]

Reminder not to talk about the LEQ/SAQ/DBQ/FRQ prompts from exams that have not been released yet online. Even though it may seem harmless, the CollegeBoard is serious about not discussing what hasn’t been released!

[apnerderie]

Obsess over how you did on the exam

[apnerderie]

Obsess over how you did on the exam

[apnerderie]

You did it! You took the APUSH/AP Euro Exam!

[apnerderie]

All The Topics to Know for the APUSH Exam (as told by my APUSH teacher)

Revolutionary War/Constitution/Articles of Confederation

The First Party System: Federalists and Republicans

Revolution of 1800

Jacksonian Democracy (1824-1840)

the Bank War

the spoils system

Indian Removal Act

Antebellum reform movements and the Second Great Awakening

Causes of the Civil War and sectional differences

political parties (Democrats vs. New Republicans)

economics

social differences

Reconstruction (1863-1877)

successes/failures

13th - 15th amendments

connections to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Industrialization and Big Business/The Gilded Age (1860-1910)

vertical and horizontal integration

trusts

steel, oil, and railroads

Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan

growth of cities

immigration

changes in politics and political machines

The Populist Movement and agrarian discontent

The Progressive Era (1890-1920)

an effort to deal with the adverse effects of industrial capitalism

the Progressive Presidents

The Indian Plains Wars (through 1890)

Spanish-American War (1898)

IMPERIALISM: Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, Cuba, etc.

World War I

causes/effects

the home front

The Red Scare

The 1920s

sources of conflict (economic, political, and social)

effects on women, African Americans, and immigrants

The 1930s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal

Hoover vs. FDR

economic, social, and political reforms

World War II

results, the home front

effects on women, African Americans, Native Americans (Navajo codetalkers, etc), Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans

The Cold War

foreign policy

where and when

1950s

conformity, suburbs, Baby Boom, domestication of women, challenges to conformity, expanding economy, consumer culture

similarities to the 1920s

1960s

civil rights movement (who, what, when, where, why, successes and failures)

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society (1963-1968)

domestic and foreign issues

1970s

Richard Nixon (1968-1973)

foreign and domestic policies

detente and Vietnam

the Southern Strategy and Watergate

1980s

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

foreign and domestic policies

tax cuts

military spending

shrinking of the government

the new right

George H.W. Bush and the end of the Cold War

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama

[well-notwiththatattitude]

I would suggest reading up on the natives of the Americas prior to 1492 and the time period prior to the Revolutionary War. There’s not a lot on that period, but there were SAQs on that time last year when I took it. Just a heads up!

[apnerderie]

Thanks @well-notwiththatattitude! My APUSH teacher has warned us that Andrew Jackson’s Indian policies in particular haven’t shown up on the exam recently (that’s ~1830, including the Indian Removal Act of 1830).

[apnerderie]

Breathe. Relax. Watch some of my favorite political satirists.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on YouTube

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver on YouTube

[apnerderie]

[apnerderie]

Tomorrow APUSH is at 8 am and AP Euro is at 12 pm!

So I give you dancing Founding Fathers:

[apnerderie]

If you need to practice FRQs (LEQs now apparently for history?), DBQs, or SAQs, the CollegeBoard student resources page is pretty rad:

APUSH

BC Calculus

AP Biology

AP English Language and Composition

AP Euro

Other

[apnerderie]

Yes that does answer my question. Thank you so much, and good luck on the exam!

Thanks! I'm glad I could help!

[apnerderie]

How does your teacher know whats going to be on the APUSH exam? I don't mean to come off as rude and I'm sorry if I do I just want to be vvv sure!! Thank you!

No problem, you don’t sound rude! My APUSH teacher doesn’t actually know what’s going to be on the exam, but he’s taught the class for many many years and there are some things that consistently show up on the exam each year, or haven’t shown up on the exam for a while and are expected to be on the exam this year. Basically what I posted is an outline of what you need to know based on what most APUSH teachers teach/what was on released exams and essays.

Hope that answers your question!

[apnerderie]

All The Topics to Know for the APUSH Exam (as told by my APUSH teacher)

Revolutionary War/Constitution/Articles of Confederation

The First Party System: Federalists and Republicans

Revolution of 1800

Jacksonian Democracy (1824-1840)

the Bank War

the spoils system

Indian Removal Act

Antebellum reform movements and the Second Great Awakening

Causes of the Civil War and sectional differences

political parties (Democrats vs. New Republicans)

economics

social differences

Reconstruction (1863-1877)

successes/failures

13th - 15th amendments

connections to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Industrialization and Big Business/The Gilded Age (1860-1910)

vertical and horizontal integration

trusts

steel, oil, and railroads

Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan

growth of cities

immigration

changes in politics and political machines

The Populist Movement and agrarian discontent

The Progressive Era (1890-1920)

an effort to deal with the adverse effects of industrial capitalism

the Progressive Presidents

The Indian Plains Wars (through 1890)

Spanish-American War (1898)

IMPERIALISM: Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, Cuba, etc.

World War I

causes/effects

the home front

The Red Scare

The 1920s

sources of conflict (economic, political, and social)

effects on women, African Americans, and immigrants

The 1930s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal

Hoover vs. FDR

economic, social, and political reforms

World War II

results, the home front

effects on women, African Americans, Native Americans (Navajo codetalkers, etc), Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans

The Cold War

foreign policy

where and when

1950s

conformity, suburbs, Baby Boom, domestication of women, challenges to conformity, expanding economy, consumer culture

similarities to the 1920s

1960s

civil rights movement (who, what, when, where, why, successes and failures)

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society (1963-1968)

domestic and foreign issues

1970s

Richard Nixon (1968-1973)

foreign and domestic policies

detente and Vietnam

the Southern Strategy and Watergate

1980s

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

foreign and domestic policies

tax cuts

military spending

shrinking of the government

the new right

George H.W. Bush and the end of the Cold War

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama

[apnerderie]

If you know all of this, you should be good!

[apnerderie]

All The Topics to Know for the APUSH Exam (as told by my APUSH teacher)

Revolutionary War/Constitution/Articles of Confederation

The First Party System: Federalists and Republicans

Revolution of 1800

Jacksonian Democracy (1824-1840)

the Bank War

the spoils system

Indian Removal Act

Antebellum reform movements and the Second Great Awakening

Causes of the Civil War and sectional differences

political parties (Democrats vs. New Republicans)

economics

social differences

Reconstruction (1863-1877)

successes/failures

13th - 15th amendments

connections to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Industrialization and Big Business/The Gilded Age (1860-1910)

vertical and horizontal integration

trusts

steel, oil, and railroads

Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan

growth of cities

immigration

changes in politics and political machines

The Populist Movement and agrarian discontent

The Progressive Era (1890-1920)

an effort to deal with the adverse effects of industrial capitalism

the Progressive Presidents

The Indian Plains Wars (through 1890)

Spanish-American War (1898)

IMPERIALISM: Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, Cuba, etc.

World War I

causes/effects

the home front

The Red Scare

The 1920s

sources of conflict (economic, political, and social)

effects on women, African Americans, and immigrants

The 1930s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal

Hoover vs. FDR

economic, social, and political reforms

World War II

results, the home front

effects on women, African Americans, Native Americans (Navajo codetalkers, etc), Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans

The Cold War

foreign policy

where and when

1950s

conformity, suburbs, Baby Boom, domestication of women, challenges to conformity, expanding economy, consumer culture

similarities to the 1920s

1960s

civil rights movement (who, what, when, where, why, successes and failures)

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society (1963-1968)

domestic and foreign issues

1970s

Richard Nixon (1968-1973)

foreign and domestic policies

detente and Vietnam

the Southern Strategy and Watergate

1980s

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

foreign and domestic policies

tax cuts

military spending

shrinking of the government

the new right

George H.W. Bush and the end of the Cold War

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama