Introduction to AP® Macroeconomics Multiple Choice Section
The AP® Macroeconomics exam is split into multiple choice questions and free response questions. So, in order to score big on your AP® Macro exam, you’ve got to score big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice. This post is designed to help you do just that! In this post, you’ll find 6 helpful tips for your AP® Macroeconomics review. When you’re done, be sure to check out the other half of scoring big on your AP® Macro exam – our post on actionable strategies for the AP® Macro free response questions.
1. No way around it – study, study, study
You probably don’t want to hear it, and while it would be nice to believe there’s a way to score big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice without some studying, we all know that isn’t the case! Simply put, there’s a lot of concepts that you’ll need to know to do well on your AP® Macro exam, and the only way to get there is to study! Aside from the basics, major topics that you’ll need to know include international trade, money and banking, and macroeconomics stabilization. For some people, building a study guide can be helpful, for others flash cards are important. Some people learn best when they’re underlining and highlighting, while others need to slow studying down a bit and take some notes at the same time. This, however, isn’t a post on studying practices. Only you know what works best for you while you study. However, we should still start here, because at the end of the day if you want to score big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice you’ve got to be prepared to put in the work studying!
2. Get a review book
To get the most out of your AP® Macroeconomics review, you’re going to want to make sure you’re supplementing it with all the material that you can. One important piece of supplemental material that you’ll want is one of the many possible AP® Macro review books. How do you know which AP® Econ study book to choose? Luckily, there are a couple of AP® Econ books out there that are highly recommended. Each year, the Princeton Review puts out an AP® Econ book called Cracking the AP® Economics Macro and Micro Exams. Likewise, each year Barron’s also puts out their AP® Microeconomics/Macroeconomics review booklet. Both of these are highly recommended books, with Barron’s being particularly useful if you need a book that goes more into detail. While these books are obviously useful for studying, they also help you frame what you need to study. They’ll hit on the key points that you’ll need to know for the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice. This will help you make sure that you aren’t wasting any study time and are studying exactly what you’ll need to know for the AP® Macro exam. Each book also comes with some extra practice materials, and as you’ll see soon, those extra materials are going to be very important!
3. Most important, practice as much as you can
This is the big one. Other than the obvious need for studying, the most important way you can prepare to score big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice is to practice! Taking practice AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice tests is important for a number of reasons. First, as we’ll see below, timing is going to be important, and there’s no way to work on your timing unless you’re actively taking AP® Macro multiple choice practice exams. Taking many practice exams will also give you a feel for the types of questions that are going to be asked. This can help you refine your studying so that you focus on what’s most important. Finally, even when you get the questions wrong on a practice exam, it’s still a great opportunity to learn! When you get an answer wrong on a practice test, you should try to figure out exactly why you got the answer wrong. This will help you retain the concept that confused you. Good sources for questions include review books, old AP® exams, and the Albert.io Macroeconomics section.
4. Focus on your timing
A big part of the help that comes from practicing as much as you can is that you get a sense of your own timing. While you’re taking the test, you’re only going to have a set amount of time to finish the multiple choice questions. This means you’ve got some trade-offs that you need to take seriously. Practicing ahead of time lets you think about how you want to handle these trade-offs.
As you work on your AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice questions, you’ll want to make sure you are reading everything carefully. You’ll want to make sure that you’re considering all the available options. Sometimes, a question will be hard, and you’ll want to skip ahead and go back and revisit it. With some questions, you’ll have to work out how it would change a graph since AP® Econ is filled with them. However, even with all you’ll have to do, you’ve still only got 70 minutes to do it in. This means before the exam, you’ve got to focus on your timing. Here, we’ll explain some ways to do just that.
First, time yourself while taking a practice exam. Don’t worry initially about how long it takes you to finish, just see where your baseline is. Once you’ve done this, if you’re finishing consistently over time, take a step back and try to figure out what’s tripping you up. Do you spend too long on questions you don’t at first know the answer to? Try skipping them and coming back to them. That way, you know that you’ve given yourself time to answer the ones you know, and you can spend your remaining time thinking about the few that you were stuck on. Finally, it’s useful to practice finishing within the time limit. If you’re still over time, evaluate what specifically is holding you up, and build some strategies to make sure that you’re finishing within the right amount of time.
5. Never forget to guess
Since 2011, AP® exams no longer take off points for incorrect guesses. This means that there is absolutely no downside to guessing! So no matter what, always make sure you put down something! However, you can even do a bit better than that. Most of the time, you’ll know enough about the subject to put down an educated guess. You can probably eliminate one or two of the answers on your AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice exam questions. As you’ll see below, one effective strategy for ruling out answers is to make changes to graphs you know and see how, for instance prices adjust. Once you’ve done this, you’ve already increased the odds that you get the right answer substantially. Then, since they won’t count anything against you, choose which of the remaining answers you think is most likely to be right and mark it down. Most of all, remember, even if you can’t eliminate any of the possible answers, take your best guess. They won’t mark it against you, and you never know, you might just be right!
6. Know your graphs!
Our last bit of advice for scoring big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice is to know your graphs! In economics, this is a big one. You’ll be asked to interpret many graphs in the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice questions. Further, for a lot of the questions, you’ll end up drawing a graph just to understand what they’re asking for. More than simply drawing and interpreting them, though, you’ll also need to understand how changes affect the graphs. Say, supply in the loanable funds market increases, you’ll need to know how to draw that on your graph and what the implications are for the question you’ve been asked. Other graphs to know include the Productions Possibilities Curve, aggregate supply and demand, and tariffs.
Conclusion
In this post, we’ve given you some tips for scoring big on the AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice questions. First and foremost, you’ve got to be willing to put in the time, studying is always key. Second, you should be on the lookout for a great review book. Depending on how much detail you’d like the review book to go into, both the Princeton Review and Barron’s make for great options. Third, and perhaps most important, you should practice as many AP® Macroeconomics multiple choice exams as you can. This will help you fine-tune not just your multiple choice taking abilities, but also your studying, as you get a feel for the key concepts and the concepts where you need to put in some extra work. It’s also important for the fourth tip, which is focusing on your timing. Finally, you’ve got to know your graphs and you should never forget to guess! After finishing this, you should go check out our tips on the AP® Macroeconomics free response questions. Be sure to leave us comments. Are there any other tips that you found particularly helpful while studying for the AP® Macro exams?
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