The AP® Macroeconomics test can seem mind-numbing and challenging if you are new to economics. Looking at the course from the outside, it seems like you will be bombarded with endless theories and graphs that contain unrecognizable terminologies and symbols. The truth is, macroeconomics, and economics in general, is a lot easier than what it looks like at a glance.

The study of economics can be put in short as the study of people and their behavior. Macroeconomics sets that study into a bigger picture. It works to predict or explain why people specialize in a certain field of production or why a government has chosen to pursue a certain policy.

So once you’ve decided to take the exam, you should keep these concepts in mind. The theories and graphs are a lot easier to make out if you associate them with real world situations. For example, opportunity cost may seem like an abstract term, but it is easier than you think. It is the loss of any alternative to a specific choice. For a real world example, your decision to study for the AP® Macroeconomics test has an opportunity cost of the time you could have spent doing other things.

AP® Macroeconomics study guides will have a wealth of real-world examples and applications of various concepts within the field. You can use these resources to help you work towards your goal of getting a 5 on the macroeconomics test. Below you will find some AP® Macroeconomics study tips to help you achieve that goal.

What’s on the Exam?

Before getting started studying for the exam, your first step would be to figure out the contents of the exam to determine the distribution of the topics you should study. The key to your AP® Macroeconomics study plan is prioritizing what will be important throughout and what information might only show up on one or two questions.

The College Board’s overview of the exam has separated the themes of the AP® macro exam into four overarching sections that are each separated into smaller concepts. These sections are given a certain percentage of coursework, and thus the exam content itself is based on these percentages. The breakdown of the exam is as follows:

I.  Basic Economic Concepts (8-14%)

This percentage is misleading. Based on the overall breakdown it would seem like this section should have the least amount of time when creating a study plan, but it’s the bedrock of the entire course.

While you won’t be spending hours looking it over, you will have to refer to coursework and information from this section throughout your studies. It would be good to keep this information close while you study. The following is the content of this section:

A. Scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost

➢ Note: These are the core of economics. While not exactly significant to the exam itself, they are important to understanding how economics work.

B. The PPC (Production Possibilities Curve)

➢ The first of many graphs you will have to understand. This graph is the basis of all other graphs.

C. Comparative advantage, absolute advantage, specialization, and trade

➢ An extremely important concept on how a country decides to produce goods and trade. This will most likely appear on the exam in some form, using a PPC to demonstrate how it works.

D. Economic systems

➢ Free market, mixed and command economies

E. Property rights and the role of incentives

➢ This is the introduction of the factors in economics. Land is the first and probably the most important factor of production.

F. Marginal analysis

➢ In short, the benefits yielded from continuing a specific activity versus the cost of continuing production. This concept has more to do with microeconomics.

II.  The Nature and Functions of Product Markets (55-70%)

As implied by the dedicated percentage, this is the most extensive part of the course. It consists of the most important theories and concepts of economics. You will graph extensively, which will more than likely be used on the AP® Macroeconomics exam itself.

A. Supply and demand (15-20%)

➢ One of the cores of economics itself. This will appear on the exam, and you will have to read a graph or create a graph yourself in an open-ended question.

B. Theory of consumer choice (5-10%)

➢ This is an expansion of marginal analysis and choice from the basic concepts. Its focus on smaller individual choices is more related to microeconomics.

C. Production and costs (10-15%)

➢ This deals with temporal shifts in production on long-run and short-run curves. This will more than likely appear on the exam in which you will have to explain the shift in curves.

D. Firm Behavior and market structure (25-35%)

➢ This is a huge chunk of the exam – and for good reason. It is formed and explains the concepts of profit and competition as well as the situations that give rise to monopolies and oligopolies. It’s very important to study this part of the exam as it contains major concepts of how economics works.

III. Factor markets (10-18%)

➢ This section is fundamental to understanding how trade works and the fundamentals of economics today. It deals with the three main factors of production (labor, rent, and capital) and how they work in economics.

IV. Market failure and the role of government (12-18%)

➢ This section takes all you have learned about economics and applies it to real life situations. The role of government is especially important in understanding the Federal Reserve’s role in the economy. Most past free response questions have at least one question that has to do with this area.

What Does the Exam Look Like?

The structure of the exam is the first thing you should look at when fleshing out your study plan. The percentages that were shown previously will be your primary guide to what topics you should look at and which ones might be less important. The AP® itself is split into two sections. These are:

The previously mentioned concept percentages represent the percent of questions that will make up the multiple-choice section of the exam. The multiple choice section is made up of 60 questions. You will have a little over a minute to answer each question. The following is a breakdown of how many questions will be directed to the different concepts in this section.

As can be seen, just based on the weighting of the course, the Supply, and Demand as well as Firm Behavior and Market Structure concepts appear to be the most important parts to learn on the exam. However, it should be noted that AP® Macroeconomics is a course that builds upon itself, meaning all previous and future material will influence how you learn the other concepts. This may prove that you should dedicate more time to learning the larger sections, but it does not mean the smaller sections are less important.

A much more important reason to consider all concepts in the exam is the free response questions. These questions can relate to nearly every concept of the exam. Many times they are constructed in such a way that you have to pull knowledge from several different concepts to formulate a correct answer. There are only two concrete things to consider for the free response section.

First, you will have to create a graph in the free response section. This is an absolute given. That means that all graph dependent concepts will be important. Even if a question does not specifically ask you for a graph, you will probably have to draw one anyway to formulate your answer.

Second, reviewing the past free response questions, there is almost always a question that has to do with government policies, market structures, and the structure of firms (monopolies, oligopolies, and related concepts). Note that the final two are part of the concept with the heaviest weight.

How Do I Study for the Exam?

This is the key question to getting a 5 on your AP® Macroeconomics exam. The answer hinges on your school’s way of teaching economics. Some schools dedicate a year to economics while others dedicate just half a year and give the other semester to government classes.

For those who take a year, you will be looking into creating a study plan that can help you keep your brain refreshed on all concepts. The best part is that you will have a guided tour through the world of macroeconomics to the point that you will have covered most of the College Board’s material at the end of the year. The downside is that you have to put in extra studying to remind yourself what you learned 6, 7, or 8 months ago.

The obvious downside to those who only take a semester of economics is that you will be presented with a compacted curriculum to try to get through the topics. This means less coursework, examples, and guidance from a teacher. However, it is not all bad as learning the core of macroeconomics leaves time for you to branch out and study other concepts that were missed in class. All of this means you will have a great way to structure your study topics based on your teacher’s rubric.

The Study Plan

Let’s look at an ideal AP® Macroeconomics study plan to get you started. This plan is set up with the goal of getting a perfect 5 on the exam. You should expect to put in 8 – 12 hours of study in a week. This means putting in about an hour to two hours of study during the school week with the rest spread out over the weekends. Those who only took a semester of macro should spend more time studying while those who are taking a year should spend less time, but cover past concepts as a way to refresh your brain.

After setting up your schedule, you should consider materials. You have your times in, but you don’t have to spend it all reading and reviewing. The internet has opened up a vast trove of resources to help you study. As long as your material is economics-oriented and has to do with the topics set up by the College Board, you can do what works for you.

Videos

For those of you looking to refresh topics, you should consider looking through videos on YouTube that can help you remember what you might have forgotten. There are two particularly great YouTube channels that are dedicated towards AP® Macroeconomics reviews:

➢ Crash Course Economics: This is a series of 35 videos that average about 10 minutes each. The videos are hosted by two high school Economics teachers who present information in a fun and visual way. This is a great way to supplement your studies by reviewing concepts.

As a side note, there are some videos in the U.S. government and politics playlist that help explain government economic policies and regulation, namely videos 46, 47, and 48 of the playlist.

➢ Clifford’s Channel: One of the hosts of the Crash Course videos has his own channel that is much more specific and great if you need a teacher instructing you on specific topics.

Reading and Review

Aside from the instruction and refresher videos, you should get some reading done. Most of these will offer AP® Macroeconomics tips on how to study for the exam. The majority of these tips have to do with memorization and strategies that will help you move faster through your exam, but not in a careless way. Of course, some of them provide you with reviews as well.

➢ The Albert.io Blog: The Albert.io blog offers a wealth of information for studying for the exam. It mostly covers specific topics, giving real world examples for those topics to help you grasp them better. There are also general study guides to help you prepare yourself.

➢ Buying a Study Guide: There are thousands of different brands of AP® Macroeconomics study guides to choose from. You should look through each to figure out which one fits your needs. The most important quality of a good study guide is that it offers a comprehensive review of all the content of the AP® Macroeconomics course with examples.

➢ The College Board’s Exam Information: This resource is invaluable because it comes straight from the organization that writes the test. Within this resource, you can find previous questions, exam tips, and the course descriptions itself.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Once you have settled yourself down into all the concepts of the exam and its content, then reviewed, you will have to test yourself and practice some questions to see where you are in your studies. The best way to do this is by answering questions relating to macroeconomic. Most of the time you might just jump into an exam and gauge yourself on what final grade you make, but there is a fine-tuned process you can take on to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Before taking the exam itself, you should try answering questions on specific topics. Albert.io offers hundreds of practice questions that you can try to see where you are at. The best part is that these questions are separated into sections. Not only do you get practice to learn from, but you also see what sections the questions come from.

The Albert.io practice questions can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses on specific concepts as set out in the College Board’s own resources. It even offers some free response questions to help you structure and execute your answer.

After identifying your weaknesses, you should go back and review the concepts that you have had trouble with. Marking down your strengths and weaknesses will help you structure your review materials to better serve your needs and give yourself a personal lesson.  After reviewing your material for an amount of time you have allotted for yourself, it will be time to jump back in and test yourself to see how much you have progressed.

Practice Tests

 At this point, you have realized your weak areas, and you’ve attempted to correct them and work towards a better exam score. You should be brave enough to go forward and take a real practice test to get a feel of what a real exam would look like.

The best suggestion for taking practice tests would be to time yourself as if it were a real exam. This means setting aside an hour or two of your day to take the exam. You should choose an area that is quiet and comfortable so as to simulate a real testing area. Finally, leave electronics and other distracting materials.

For a perfect practice test, you should refer to the College Board’s 2012 Exam. This is a real AP® Macroeconomics test from 2012. The printout includes a scantron and papers to write on as if it were the real thing. With this practice test, you can simulate a testing environment and time yourself for the separate sections of the exam.

The 2012 exam also contains the answers to both the free-response and the multiple-choice sections of the exam. For the free-response answers, you can also check your work and score your answer with points based on how the College Board scores results. Finally, the answers are a great resource in themselves because they offer real insight into what a grader will be looking for. After you have reviewed your answer, the exam provides a scoring chart at the end to calculate your final score.

In addition to the 2012 exam, there is also a 1995 exam for you to take. However, the 1995 exam offers less help for gauging what the exam might look like due to its age as some changes have been made to the exam since then. There are also sample free response answers going all the way back to 2003. Here you can find real student answers and grader comments to help you make yourself prepared for what will be included in the exam.

Strategize

While knowledge probably makes up most of what you score on your exam, you still need to take a step back and realize that this is a timed exam. You don’t only have to show what you know; you also have to be able to answer quickly enough to get through the exam. This is where test taking strategy comes in. The strategy does not necessarily apply to the moment you are taking the test, but also all the time leading up to your exam.

Most pre-test strategies have already been covered above. You have to set up a schedule and stick to it so that you can cover all the material necessary to get your 5 on test day. This means setting aside hours each day, or even figuring out if you want to sit down and study for hours on end or study in smaller blocks throughout the day. All of these strategies have to do with what your personal needs are and your capacity to study.

Probably the most important aspect of a test preparation strategy is working in such a way that you minimize stress and anxiety. The main problem with test taking is the stress that mounts in the months and days leading up to the exam. This can drastically interfere with your learning capacity and your ability to study efficiently.

You will also have to make a strategy that you can use on the day of the exam. Remember that you only have a little over a minute per question on the multiple choice exam. The best part of the exam is that you can jump back and forth on the test to answer questions. If you find yourself caught on hard question, immediately skip it and come back to it.

Doing the easiest questions first means you are saving time for the harder questions. For example, if you are taking only 20 seconds to read and answer easy questions, you are stacking up a surplus of 40 seconds per easy question that you can utilize to think about a harder question. This extra time really piles up over the course of the exam.

The free-response questions come with their own strategy. The primary cause of a badly answered free response question is the lack of organization. You have 70 minutes to answer your questions. While most people think that the free response questions take a long time to answer, it does not have to be that way. The best strategy is to plan ahead.

When you first read your question, take a moment to consider it. You can use the provided scrap piece of paper to formulate the answer. Outline the topics as asked in the question and jot down the main point of your answer. After you have an outline, move on to answer the questions in an organized manner. This method of planning will help you save time and offer a coherent answer that will help your grader get a grasp of what you want to say.

The organization extends to graphing as well. You should take time to sketch a graph on an extra piece of paper before actually drawing the graph in your answer. This will ensure your graph is legible to the grader and free of smudges and other marks that might make it harder to read.

Wrapping it up

AP® Macroeconomics seems like a difficult subject to grasp at times. Just looking at the structure of the classes and all the topics you have to cover can be dizzying. The truth is, all of macroeconomics can be summed up into the study of human behavior and how they make use of what resources they possess. The study of economics is what you buy, why you buy it, and how that item was provided for you.

Studying economics will help you grasp how the world works. This is mainly shown in how you interpret government policies. With a background in macroeconomics, you can decide whether or not you think it was the right move for the Federal Reserve to raise or lower the interest rates or if the president’s program can really help unemployment.

The AP® Macroeconomics exam does not have to be a big, formidable beast if you take the time to look at the concepts that the exam covers. Each of the concepts is things that you know or things that can be applied to real life. Using your resources and studying can help you get a grasp on those concepts and understand how macroeconomics really works.

Looking for AP® Macroeconomics practice?

Kickstart your AP® Macroeconomics prep with Albert. Start your AP® exam prep today.