Many students struggle with the AP® European History multiple choice section, as it is not based on hard facts but on your ability to think like a historian. When you break it down, though, it becomes clear that there are a few AP® European History multiple choice strategies that will make the whole test easier.
1. Study up on your sources
The way the AP® European History exam is set up, each group of questions will open with a stimulus. The best way to do well on the test is to be familiar with the stimuli. When studying, you should focus on primary and secondary sources. If your textbook offers excerpts or artwork, pay attention to them and to what your textbook has to say about them. Visit a library or do a Google search for different historical materials to study. If you’re lucky, the sources you study will show up on the test. If not, though, you will still benefit from being familiar with the formats you will be tested on.
2. Go to an Art Museum
It is very likely that you will encounter fine art on the AP® European History exam. Interpreting art, unfortunately, is not second nature to most of us, and the intricacies of a delicate painting are lost on us. An art museum is the perfect place to learn about how to analyze art and all of its subtleties.
If you’ve never been to an art museum, check if there are any in your area. It shouldn’t cost too much money – in fact many museums are free – but if it does, it is a good investment. As you explore the museum, consider taking a tour, whether a self-guided audio tour or one assisted by a tour guide.
The benefit of taking a tour is that the guide will explain the context and impact of the pieces at hand. You will learn about the artists who created them, but you will also learn about how to analyze artwork, which is your main goal. Don’t be afraid to ask tour guides and curators about a piece you don’t understand, as they may provide unique input.
You don’t have to go to an art museum to pass the AP® European History exam, but if you have the time and ability to do so, it will be a great experience that could change the way you view historical artwork. When you see the artwork on the multiple choice section – or the DBQ for that matter – it will look less like a picture and more like a road-map to the answer.
3. Focus on the stimuli you best understand
More likely than not, you will be presented with a range of material on your exam. If you find yourself struggling with the first source, skip it and come back. Find the source you are most comfortable with and start with that.
If you are good at math, look for graphs and charts. If you are a great English student, the poems or prose may be your best bet. You may even be able to incorporate knowledge and skills learned from another class. For example, you will be much more equipped to analyze Brunelleschi’s “Adoration of the Magi” if you’ve taken an advanced art class, or you may be able to better pick apart a population growth chart after a Statistics class.
Look through the examples linked in tip one and find the ones you best understand. Know before you take the AP® European History exam what you are most comfortable with so that when the time comes you are prepared to find the easiest section.
4. Hone in on perspective
Just as with the DBQ, the AP® European History multiple choice section requires you to be able to analyze a document’s point of view. What influenced the author to write so negatively about the Peasant Rebellions, or what in the artist’s experience could have caused them to cast the king in such darkness?
Understanding the perspective of a piece is crucial to passing the AP® European History multiple choice section. If you struggle with this, try making a chart for every passage. Look at the date the passage was created, and list what religious, social, and political events happened near that time frame. List what you know about the author or artist, and what biases they could have. Even if you don’t recognize the name, there should be a short bio that will give you the information you need.
When you have this chart written, reference it any time a question asks about the author’s perspective. Look for similarities between your chart and the given answers. If you still don’t know the answer, eliminate any answers that are obvious misinterpretations and guess from there.
5. Know your satire
One of the most important parts about reading through the documents for the AP® European History multiple choice section is making sure that you don’t misinterpret a satirical piece. If you take a passage that is meant as a joke to be literal, you will have no chance at getting the questions right.
It’s easy to spot satire if you know what you’re looking for. The best way to do this is to get to know different types of satire. We recommend reading Candide, Don Quixote, or 1984 for good historical satire, but if you want something more modern you can just turn on any mock news program or read articles from The Onion.
Remember, images can be satirical as well. This is especially true of political cartoons, which are very likely to pop up on the AP® European History exam. Look for exaggerated or humorous features and think about what they mean. Why would the cartoonist give Louis XVI an enormous belly? Is it merely gluttony and obesity they are criticizing, or is it Louis’s greed and self-centeredness that inspired the artist? Being able to pick apart political cartoons, and all types of satire, will impact your grade for the better and ensure you don’t trip up due to misinterpretation.
6. Study movements before events
When taking the AP® European History multiple choice section, it is more important for you to understand broad social, political, intellectual, and religious movements than the events they are tied to.
It’s all good and fine to know that Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Chapel in 1517, but if you don’t know what impact these theses had on Christianity then you won’t be able to dissect the questions on the multiple choice section. Start with the broadest periods of change in European thought – the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, or the Industrial Revolution, for example – then study their causes and effects, as well as the core principles on which they were based.
Once you feel that you have a good understanding of these movements, you will need to be able to apply them to your sources. As you study a primary or secondary source, pay attention to what the social, political, intellectual, and religious climates were like when it was written. Think about how all of this may have impacted the events described as well as the author or artist describing them.
Knowing how to contextualize a source will be very useful to you when you are answering questions about how the stimuli fit into the broader picture of the time-frame, which can be difficult if you do not understand the movements that led to the piece being created.
7. Don’t over-analyze
We know that we’ve been drilling the concept of analysis into your head, but don’t waste time analyzing more than you have to. Take, for example, the second passage of the AP® European History sample multiple choice packet. The passage deals with the French Revolution and Marxism, but it was written in 1984 by Lynn Hunt.
What is important to keep in mind is that the questions following the passage are all about how a Marxist would interpret the passage. You could outline in your mind how the political climate of 1984 might influence Hunt’s ideas about how Marx thought about the French Revolution, and it might be correct and interesting, but it would be a total waste of time. As much as we encourage you to think deeply about the passages, make sure you know what you’re supposed to be answering before you dig too deep.
Take away!
At the end of the day, the best way to be successful on the AP® European History exam is to study sources, learn to analyze, and be a smart, alert test taker. The more you work on these AP® European History multiple choice strategies, the easier it will be. Is there any tip you would like to see on this list? Tell us in the comments, and while you’re there let us know which of these strategies worked for you!
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