Preparing for an AP® Exam in just one month can seem like a tall order, but is perfectly doable with the right plan – a plan which will prepare you for the test and boost your test-taking confidence by getting you used to test-like conditions.
However, this type of plan will require some serious work on your part, involving multiple hours of work every day for six days a week; the sixth day, considered a weekend, is a much longer study session – if you would prefer to break this up into two sessions and use the seventh day of the week too, that’s perfectly fine. Just be sure to keep up with your study guide and with all your review work in class as well, and you’ll be sure to excel on the exam.
If you have extra time at the end of any session (or if you have slightly more than a month to ready yourself for this exam), use it to review the areas and concepts which are most difficult for you personally. On the other hand, if you have slightly less than a month to get ready or if you fall behind, feel free to compress one or more sets of two days into one day, or use the seventh day of the week to catch up. You don’t want to spend the night before the exam cramming!
Cramming and staying up too late in general are very bad for your overall health and exam performance when they happen too regularly. While using this study guide and preparing yourself for the rest of your end-of-year or end-of-semester tests, be sure to stay healthy with your eating and exercise habits, and also make sure you’re getting enough sleep. You don’t want to spend all this time preparing just to fall asleep during the exam – it sounds silly, but it has happened.
However, the most important thing to remember about this study guide is that it is adaptable to you and your needs. If you notice that certain activities aren’t helping you, feel free to cut them out and replace them with more of the activities that are. If you prefer to work alone, with a group, or in a mixture of the two situations, feel free to use this guide in conjunction with that. The most important thing about studying for a big exam is to experiment with a variety of things and see what works best for you.
Having such an open-ended, adaptable study guide will give you a lot of freedom, but also replace a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders, which will boost your confidence and help prepare you for your college career.
No matter what your approach, there are certain things you will need. Look over the following list and make sure you have everything you need to study, and then let’s jump into the guide!
Course Materials
– Albert.io Practice Multiple Choice Questions for AP® Comparative Government
– Notecards or a flashcard site like Quizlet
– Note-taking and highlighting materials
– Publicly released AP® Comparative Government Free Response Questions
– The College Board’s official AP® Comparative Government Course and Exam Description
– Your AP® Comparative Government textbook and/or online or journal sources of comparable quality and difficulty level
Optional Materials
– Any AP-style workbook or study guide your teacher has supplied you with, a workbook associated with your textbook, or any other reading materials you may find helpful as study-guide supplements
– High-quality news sources for keeping abreast of current events in the political arena
– A dictionary and/or any other reference work you may need
– A calculator (for figuring out percentages of question sets you get correct)
Once you have all the necessary materials ready, let’s get to work!
Day 1
Before getting into your review questions and going over FRQ techniques, it’s important to refresh your ideas about the course and your understanding of the workings of the six countries focused upon in this course: Nigeria, Great Britain, China, Iran, Mexico, and Russia.
– Read “The Course,” “Course Objectives,” and “Introduction to Comparative Politics” in the Course Description (pages 6-7). Think about the things you will be tested on when exam time comes.
– Draw a small diagram for each of the six countries, showing the major institutions of each one’s government and diagramming their interactions with one another, the ways they share power, etc. Try to make these as detailed as possible, and either use your book or check your work with your book or another source at the end, as you will be referencing these throughout the study guide.
– Do some research and find a current event involving each country or originating or written about in that country’s news. Read one for each country, and then summarize three of the articles you chose with concise paragraphs. Writing down summaries will help you remember current events and keep them in your head, and improving your writing skills can exponentially improve your chances of doing well on the exam.
– Share your summaries with a friend, family member, member of your study group, or your teacher to have them checked for clarity. Does the person you shared with now understand what is happening in the event and its ramifications for the nation?
Day 2
– Begin today by writing summaries for the three remaining current events articles you read yesterday. At the end of today’s study session, either check them yourself or share them with a friend or family member, focusing on your written clarity.
– Look at the diagrams you drew for each of the six countries. Although you won’t have to write down anything specific yet, think about the ways in which the structure of each country’s government relates to its culture and compares to the structure of other governments in the course (as well as our own).
– To get a general overview of this exam’s multiple choice questions, go to Albert.io and try your hand at two questions from each of the subsections under “Introduction to Comparative Politics” and “Sovereignty, Authority, and Power.” Try to do one easy or moderate question and one difficult question from each subset so that you get a good idea of the range of difficulty on the exam.
Note: If you do not have full access to Albert.io, you will not be able to use the difficult questions. Although it is possible to complete this review course without full access to Albert.io, we recommend that you get full access, as practicing with questions from across all difficulty levels will better prepare you for the variety of questions on the test. If getting full access to Albert.io is impossible, you will need to supplement the multiple choice questions in this guide with more work at AP® Central and with your teacher or study group, or in a textbook workbook or with textbook questions.
– As you’re doing the questions, write down any unfamiliar concepts or terms you come across, whether they are parts of the questions or answers (even incorrect answers, as they won’t be incorrect for every question). Also, thoroughly read and take notes on the explanations that Albert.io provides for each question, especially those you get wrong or have to guess to get right.
– Using the handy chart at the back, write down the number of questions you got right and wrong, and also mark the difficulty level. Although seeing a high number of wrong answers might be disheartening, keep in mind that this is the very beginning of your journey to success on the exam, and that half of the questions were from the highest of the three difficulty levels. On the other hand, if you did very well, congratulate yourself but maintain focus as we review – there’s always room to improve.
– Begin taking detailed notes on all of the unfamiliar terms and concepts you wrote down during your question session. Although typing is okay, it is best to hand write these notes, as the act of writing itself will help you remember.
Day 3
– Use your book and your class notes to begin making flashcards for this class. The AP® Government and Politics Exams are both very vocabulary-focused, as political science has a particular vocabulary that needs to be grasped to get to the deeper levels of interpretation and analysis of political data. As such, these flashcards and your notes on unfamiliar terms and concepts will be vital to your success on this exam.
Try to get through at least half of the terms and concepts in the Introduction section and the Sovereignty, Authority, and Power section. To help, you may want to re-read or skim the detailed descriptions of each section that you read on Day One (in the Course Description).
– Continue taking notes on unfamiliar terms and concepts, even if they overlap with the key terms you’re putting on flashcards. Repetition is the key to memorization, and memorization of terms and ideas has to come before the higher-level analysis you’ll have to do as part of your exam. Try to finish up the notes on all the unfamiliar terms and concepts you’ve written down so far. Add in any terms you came across in your book or another resource that are unfamiliar to or difficult for you. As said at the beginning, this study guide is adaptable, and focusing the most on the terms you personally need to cover is vital to your success.
– Because you will be starting the terms, concepts, and multiple choice questions for the next section tomorrow, read the description of Section III, “Political Institutions,” in the Course Description (beginning on p. 8). Take notes on where the focus of this section will be.
Day 4
– Begin today by finishing up your flashcards for Sections I and II. Go over your notes on unfamiliar terms and concepts, highlighting any terms that still seem especially difficult for you. Reading through these notes and highlighting are very important.
– Re-read your notes on what the Course Description had to say about “Political Institutions” or skim the section in the Course Description itself.
– Go to Albert.io and do two questions from each of the twelve subsets of Section III, “Political Institutions” – for a total of 24 questions. As before, try to do one easy or moderate question and one difficult from each subset.
– Go through the same post-question routine that you did last time, writing down any difficult terms and concepts and recording your correct and incorrect answers.
Day 5
Tomorrow will be a mock AP® Exam day, so today will be focused on review.
– Go over all your flashcards. You can break this up to make it easier, and do it in any way you please – self-quizzing, quizzing or games with your study group, asking a friend to help, writing yourself short tests or assigning yourself writing prompts – anything at all. Try a few different review methods and see what works best for you.
– Reread any highlighted (especially difficult) sections of your difficult terms and concepts notes.
– Reread the explanations for the questions you got wrong or that gave you trouble.
– Look over all your written assignments for this week again, especially the diagrams you prepared on Day One. Also read your notes on the Course Description sections you read this week.
– Try to also establish a pre-test ritual for yourself, looking up calming techniques to try, eating a healthy dinner, getting enough sleep, etc. Nerves and weariness can do almost as much damage to a student taking an exam as being unprepared can under the right circumstances.
Day 6
Today is your first mock AP® Exam! With this and all the following AP-like exercises in the study guide (including two more mock AP® Exams and several FRQs), it is important to work under test-like conditions. Sit at a comfortable desk instead of on a bed or in an armchair, don’t take breaks in the middle of tasks, don’t use outside resources, etc. And, perhaps most importantly, keep an eye on the time during FRQs – you don’t want to use too much time to answer a question, because you’ll be timed on the exam. As the numbers of multiple choice questions will vary from mock test to mock test, don’t worry about finishing them in a specific time, but work quickly on them as well, and keep in mind you’ll only have about a minute per question when exam time comes.
Mimicking test-like conditions now can help you a great deal when you’re really confronted with them later.
– Do one Albert.io question from each subset of the first three sections (“Introduction to Comparative Government,” “Sovereignty, Authority, and Power,” and “Political Institutions”), trying to keep most of them in the moderate difficulty range. Don’t read the explanations, but write down the questions you got wrong or want to read about so that you can come back and read them later; the explanations may give something away in another question and skew your results.
– Take a short break.
– Try your hand at your first FRQ set. The Free Response Questions from 2012 include a wide variety of things we have already gone over in this guide and things that we haven’t studied in detail yet, but that you should have covered in class. Try to complete all the questions – even if you don’t perform well on concepts we haven’t reviewed yet, doing this will create a strong groundwork upon which to build when we get to those concepts.
– Go over this “AP® Exam” extensively, reading the explanations for all questions you need extra information on and combing through the Scoring Guidelines and Student Samples available for the FRQs from the year 2012 – during the review of your FRQs, it may be a good idea to enlist the help of a friend, mentor, or family member, who may be able to point out areas where you need to clarify your writing that you would miss going over on your own (because your own ideas are always going to seem clearer to you than to someone else).
– Use any extra time you may have to look over flashcards and notes, focusing on anything you missed that’s still giving you significant trouble.
Start your AP® Comparative Government Prep today
Day 1
– To start off a new week of work, return to your notes and flashcards from last week and read through about a third of them to keep them fresh in your mind. Keep the other two-thirds separate so you may go over them on subsequent days. Remember to mark any cards or highlight any terms that are giving you extra difficulty.
– Read the section in the Course Description entitled “Citizens, Society, and the State,” starting on page 9. Take a few brief notes on what this section’s foci are.
– Using your book or class notes, start compiling a list of key terms and making flashcards for them. Try to get through at least a third of your new flashcards today.
Day 2
– Go through the next third of last week’s notes and flashcards; though this can seem time-consuming, it is very important to keep older content fresh while learning new things.
– Read a new current events article or two that relates to the topic “Citizens, Society, and the State” or read over your notes relating this topic to each of the six core countries in particular. Then give a brief summary of the social and cultural lives and civil rights situations of each of the six countries. Think about points of contrast between countries – say, all the differences between levels of personal and political freedom in Great Britain, Mexico, and China. What causes this differences and what effects do different levels of freedom have on other aspects of politics and government in those countries? Write a two- or three- paragraph essay comparing and contrasting at least one of the core countries with at least one other.
– Continue working on your flashcards for “Citizens, Society, and the State,” trying to get 2/3 of them done by the end of today’s session.
Day 3
– Finish going through last week’s notes and flashcards. Did you remember most of your terms, or at least more than you did before starting this study program? If not, consider what aspects of the program haven’t been working for you and what you can do to change those activities or open yourself to them more. Honest self-assessment is one of the most difficult things about being a student and preparing for tests, but is vital not only for AP® Exams but for the college and working worlds as well.
– Begin working on the Albert.io questions for “Citizens, Society, and the State,” doing two from each of the six subsets, again splitting them evenly between easy/moderate and difficult. Follow your usual procedures for marking difficult terms and concepts for inclusion in your notes, and expand your list of key terms for this subject area if necessary.
– Finish your flashcards for this subject area.
– Begin working on notes for difficult terms and concepts – try to get at least half of them done during today’s session.
Day 4
– Finish making notes for your difficult terms and concepts.
– Go back to the articles you read and short essays you wrote on Day Two of this week. As you re-read them, annotate them with anything new you have learned or anything you would like to add.
– Make a chart with each of the six core countries (Great Britain, China, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico, and Iran) getting a column and each of the following categories getting a row:
– How People Live
– Human Rights / Civil Rights Situation
– Reason for Current Sitaution
– Current Changes and Trends in Human Rights / Civil Rights Situation
– Reasons for Recent Changes
Fill this chart out, using your book and any reliable print or online resources you think may help you. Don’t worry about writing out detailed explanations; just put a few bullet points that give the “big picture” in each box.
– Write another short comparison-contrast essay between at least two countries, using your chart to aid you.
Day 5
– Today will be a review day, as there will be a mock AP® Exam (like last week’s) tomorrow. As such, begin by reviewing this week’s flashcards and notes on difficult terms and concepts. As said last week, feel free to mix up your review methods – some notes reading, some self-quizzing, some quizzing or study games with classmates, some self-assessed writing exercises. By now you should be getting a good idea of what helps you most.
– Go over your writing exercises from this week, rereading them and assessing them. Think about comparing and contrasting the situations in various countries, as that is what a good many FRQs focus on.
– Go over a small, random assortment of your flashcards from last week. Are you retaining that information well?
Day 6
Today is your second mock AP® Exam. As stated a week ago, it is best to complete these assignments under conditions that are as much like the test as possible – no breaks in the middle of tasks, no outside resources, short breaks between tasks, keeping time in mind on FRQs, etc.
– Complete one Albert.io multiple choice question (preferably moderate level) from each subset up until the end of Section IV, “Citizens, Society, and the State.” As with last week’s mock AP® Exam, don’t look at the question explanations until after the test.
– Complete the FRQs from the year 2013. As with last week, there is some material in this FRQ packet that we haven’t gone over yet, but try your best, as this will improve your test-taking skills and lay the groundwork for study to come.
– Go over the exam extensively and honestly, assessing yourself to the best degree you can, and perhaps enlisting outside help when it comes to looking over your own writing. Did your score improve since the last mock exam? If so, congratulations! If not, think about the reasons why it did not – was the new material more difficult? Were you particularly tired today, or was some study activity not working? Try to figure out what went wrong this time around, while you have plenty of time to correct it before test day.
Start your AP® Comparative Government Prep today
Day 1
– Read the section “Political and Economic Change” in the Course Description, starting on page 10. Think about how the key points for this section encompass much of what we have already covered. This section is where a great deal of the analysis comes in, and where you can put what you’ve learned to work to better understand the world.
– Look back at your chart from last week, considering the sections “Current Changes and Trends in the Human Rights / Civil Rights Situation” and “Reasons for Recent Changes.” How do the changes in the ways each country treats and interacts with its people (and vice versa) mirror or contradict economic changes that are happening in that country or any foreign or internal problems the country is facing? How do a nation’s actions make sense (or fail to) with regard to its history and culture?
– Write a mini-essay summarizing and explaining some recent political, social, and economic changes in Mexico; then write a similar mini-essay detailing China’s socioeconomic and political situation, and how it is changing. Be sure to relate both essays to their respective nations’ history and culture as well as their current situations (such as the drug war in Mexico).
Day 2
– Begin today’s study session by going over around ten to twenty random flashcards from each of the previous sections. Are you still retaining knowledge?
– Start your Albert.io questions for this section, “Political and Economic Change.” As before, do two questions from each subset, for a total of ten questions, and try to get an equal difficulty distribution. Track your right and wrong answers and write down any difficult terms and concepts for further research as usual.
– Begin researching difficult terms and concepts.
– Compile a list of key terms for this section as you did for previous sections, and start making each list item into a flashcard. You should get through at least a quarter of your flashcards.
Day 3
– Look over a different set of ten to twenty random flashcards from previous sections, quizzing yourself and marking anything you need to study or research further.
– Look back at your mini-essays from this week’s Day One, on Mexico and China. Write similarly focused essays on Nigeria and Great Britain.
– Continue researching difficult terms and concepts.
– Continue making flashcards. Try to finish them, or get fairly close, by the end of this session.
Day 4
– Finish any flashcards and notes on difficult terms if necessary.
– Look over a set of about twenty random flashcards from previous sections.
– Write mini-essays for the last two core-focus countries, Iran and Russia.
– Look over all your mini-essays. Have you accurately described trends and changes in each country’s socioeconomic and political realities in regard to their histories and their present situations? If you need to add to these or annotate them, do it now, as these are a very useful component of your study guide. Having a good understanding of current events and trends is a vital component of being a good student and a good citizen.
– Look over another random set of about twenty flashcards from previous sections, mixing a few in from this section as well.
Day 5
– Look over a set of about twenty random flashcards from all previous sections. Glance through and quiz yourself with your detailed notes on particularly difficult concepts from the section “Political and Economic Change.”
– Read the section “Public Policy” in the Course Description – it begins on page 12. Take notes on what the major foci for this section are.
– Go to Albert.io and look at the multiple choice practice questions for this section, “Public Policy.” Because there are only two different subsets, you will be doing five total questions from the first subset, “Common Policy Issues,” and two from the last set, “Factors Influencing Public Policy and Implementation.” Follow our normal procedure for dealing with and benefiting from multiple choice questions.
– Begin working on difficult terms and concepts notes and key-term flashcards (with information from your book and/or class notes) for this section. Try to get half of each done today.
Day 6
Rather than using today as a mock AP® Test, it will be a large cumulative review. However, it will include a full FRQ packet, and this should be completed under test-like conditions (which means getting it done to the best of your ability in 100 minutes).
– Begin by going over 30-50 flashcards from all sections, marking those that give you particular difficulty.
– Glance through all your written assignments, diagrams, and charts that you’ve produced as part of this study guide (and any similar materials you may have done for class assignments). Think about the connections between the various subject foci, the countries’ political and economic systems, and the relative levels of freedom experienced by people all over the world. Think about current trends in each of the six countries, and of the overarching trends that connect them all: Globalization, democratization, etc.
– Complete the entire 2009 FRQ packet. As we have gone over all the subject areas covered in this course, you should have a bit of a grasp on all materials. Still, when you are finished, go over it extensively as you have gone over FRQs in previous weeks.
– Finish today’s session by studying another 30-50 flashcards from across the course and marking those that give you difficulty, then going back through all your marked cards from earlier.
Start your AP® Comparative Government Prep today
Congratulations – you’ve made it to the last week of study, and the test is just ahead. Hopefully you’re feeling more prepared and confident every day. If not, find ways to calm yourself, and really think about your study habits, remembering that honest, high-quality self-assessment is one of your most important keys to success. You still have time to improve, no matter how much difficulty you’re having or how well you’re already doing. It’s time to finish strong!
Day 1
– Begin today by going over a large set of flashcards from all sections – although analysis is becoming more and more important as this guide becomes more FRQ-focused and you get closer to the test, you can’t forget these terms, which will serve as important parts of many multiple choice questions and undergird all your arguments during the written section.
– Write a five-paragraph or similar length essay about globalization, giving at least three examples of how globalization is affecting politics, economics, and culture today. Also talk about the history of globalization and the role of technology in increasing its pace.
– Read a few articles about current events in Great Britain and Mexico and summarize one event for each country in a short paragraph or two. Try to focus on articles that have global implications.
– Review a smaller set of flashcards from across all sections.
– Look over your difficult terms and concepts notes from Sections I and II, the Introduction and “Sovereignty, Authority, and Power.”
Day 2
– Look over your essay about globalization from yesterday. Find a friend or family member who is not as well-versed in politics, preferably not another AP® Comparative student, and try to explain the concept to her or him. Then find a classmate (or your teacher) and explain the same concept to him or her. Do you have difficulty finding the words or does it come easily? Does the person who knows about globalization verify your facts, and does the person who doesn’t know seem to understand after your explanation?
– Go over a small set of flashcards from across all sections.
– Look over your difficult terms and concepts notes from Section III, “Political Institutions.”
Day 3
– Begin today by completing one multiple choice question, preferably of at least moderate difficulty, from each subset on the Albert.io site that you have not already completed. Read the explanations thoroughly, whether you are right or wrong on a given question.
– Go over your difficult terms and concepts notes from Section IV, “Citizens, Society, and the State.”
– Go over a small, random set of flashcards from across all sections.
– Research current events in China and Iran, and summarize one or two articles about each in a few short paragraphs. Would you feel comfortable explaining this material to a friend? Try it!
Day 4
– Research current events in Nigeria and Russia, summarizing one or two articles about each country as before. Try explaining the current state of political affairs in each country to a classmate or family member.
– Go over your difficult terms and concepts notes from Sections V and VI, “Political and Economic Change” and “Public Policy.”
– Quiz yourself or have a friend quiz you with a random set of 30-50 flashcards from across all sections.
– Re-read your short essay on globalization. Write a list of the ways globalization has affected each of the six core countries recently – be specific!
– Before concluding today’s session, quiz yourself on at least 20 flashcards from this course and complete one more question from each subset you haven’t already finished on Albert.io.
Day 5
– Go to your Course Description and read the “Curriculum Outline.” Do you feel comfortable with all the topics listed on the outline? Are there any areas you feel you need extra review?
– Circle, highlight, or star any areas you are very unsure about in red. Circle, highlight, or star any areas you are somewhat unsure about in yellow.
– Do additional reading about each of these in your textbook, online, or in political books or journals, or, if you’re a more hands-on or auditory learner, try talking them over with a friend or family member or writing a short piece on each.
– Read over any Albert.io question explanations and FRQ samples relating to the concepts marked in red.
– Conclude today’s session with a little writing – do the “Short-Answer Concepts” questions from 2011’s FRQ packet. If you have extra time, try your hand at the “Short-Answer Concepts” from 2010 as well!
Day 6
– Today we will begin with a massive multiple choice review. Complete all the Albert.io questions you haven’t already done, but do not worry about doing them under test-like conditions. Instead, break them into small groups of about five related questions, do them all at once, and then spend some time reading their associated explanations and perhaps expanding your notes. Even if you don’t think you’ll have time to look over notes again, write things down – the simple act of writing will help you remember!
– Today’s session will conclude with the full FRQ packet from the year 2014. After completing all of the questions, go over your answers extensively with the Scoring Guidelines and Sample Responses.
As this study guide concludes, don’t forget to stay healthy and calm. If you have extra time before the test, continue reviewing flashcards, written assignments, and notes on difficult terms and concepts, but, even more importantly, keep your eating and sleeping patterns regular and healthy. Engage in calming pre-test rituals, and be sure to eat a healthy breakfast. Stay confident! This test is difficult, but you have already worked very hard to prepare yourself, and are ready to do your absolute best.
Let us know what has worked for you. What did you like best about this one month study guide? Do you have recommendations of your own on how to study for the AP® Comparative Government exam?
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