A month may not seem like a long time to prepare for such a large and complicated exam (on so large and complicated a subject), but there is hope – plenty of people have been in the same spot you’re in right now, and plenty of them have aced the AP® US Government and Politics exam anyway. To pass any test, no matter how difficult, all you need is a bit of confidence and a great deal of preparation. Conveniently enough, confidence is something that usually grows with increased preparation and focus – things this study guide can give you.
That being said, one month is not a huge amount of time to prepare for this type of exam, so you will do multiple hours of extensive work every day. This guide assumes 4 weeks/month and that you will work 6 days out of the week, with the sixth being longer (because it is assumed to be a weekend day). If you’d like to study less, more often, feel free to break the long session (Day 6) of each week into two parts and study the second part on the seventh day of the week, which will not be dedicated to any specific activities as part of this study guide.
If you have a little extra time, use it to review the areas that were most difficult for you or repeat study activities that seem to help you the most. If you don’t quite have a whole month, you’ll have to compress two days of studying into one a few times, depending on exactly how little time you have; if this is necessary, it is strongly recommended that you do it either early on or while reviewing material that is already very familiar to you. Don’t get caught staying up all night cramming before the exam!
This brings us to another important point – please do your best to stay healthy, especially with your sleeping and eating patterns, during this month, especially as you get closer to health day. Although most high school students have crazy sleep schedules, especially during “exam season,” it’s very important to your long-term health and your short-term performance that you get enough regular sleep and give your body the nutritional fuel it needs.
Last but not least, the material in this AP® US Government study guide should be adapted to your own preferences. While all practice essays and multiple choice questions should be completed alone and in test-like conditions unless specifically stated otherwise, how you go over them or study other materials is up to you. Some students prefer to work alone while others prefer group work, and still others prefer a combination of the two. This study guide will present you with a wide range of activities and materials that will help prepare you for the test – try them all, but stick to the ones that feel the best for you. The most important thing is that you take your studying seriously and remain comfortable and dedicated.
Here is a list of the materials you will need to complete the activities in this study guide, along with some optional materials that will probably help you out a great deal. After you’ve checked the list, let’s start studying!
Course Materials
– Albert.io Practice Questions for AP® US Government and Politics
– Notecards or a flashcard site like Quizlet
– Note-taking and highlighting materials
– Publicly released AP® US Government and Politics Free-Response Questions
– The College Board’s official AP® US Government and Politics Course Description
– Your AP® US Government and Politics textbook and/or online or journal sources of comparable quality and difficulty level
– Official College Board-released additional reading materials – available free here under the heading “special focus materials”
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)
Day 1
The first two days of this guide will be for testing the waters and seeing how you feel working through AP-style questions in a test-like environment. Although you have probably already worked through AP-style multiple choice questions in class, the exercises across these two days will focus upon getting you a variety of questions in terms of content and difficulty level to give you a feel for the test so that you may better prepare for it.
– Go to Albert.io’s multiple choice practice questions. Notice that they are divided into six sections, which line up with the sections outlined in the Course Description. Today we will be working with the first 3 sections: “Constitutional Foundations of the U.S. Government,” “Political Beliefs and Behaviors,” and “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media.”
Let’s start with “Constitutional Underpinnings of the US Government.” Do 3 questions from each of this sections four subsections: “Ideologies and Considerations,” “Checks and Balances and the Separation of Powers,” “Federalism,” and “Theories of Democratic Government.” For each subsection, choose one easy question, one moderate, and one difficult. Mark or write down the name and number of each question you do and whether you got it right or wrong. Do not look at any of the other questions yet.
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.
Albert.io will automatically track the number of easy, moderate, and difficult questions you get right.
– Do 3 questions from each subsection for the next section, “Political Beliefs and Behaviors,” again choosing one easy, one moderate, and one difficult question from each set. These subsections are called “Beliefs About Government and Leaders,” “Processes of Learning About Politics,” “Public Opinion,” “Participation in Public Life,” and “Differences in Political Beliefs and Behaviors.” Again, write down the name and number for each question and mark whether you got it right or wrong.
– Repeat this process with the next section, “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media.” This group’s subsections are titled “Political Parties and Elections,” “Interest Groups and PACs,” and “Mass Media.”
– Look over the questions you got wrong and any that you only got right due to guessing. Write down the amount of correct and incorrect or guessed answers and figure out your percentage of correct answers out of the total number of questions.
This can be challenging at first, and your confidence may suffer a blow, but remember that this is only the first day of your study program and that you have plenty of time to improve. If you’re already doing really well, great job! However, you can always improve and it is important to stay vigilant and dedicated even when you feel at your best.
– With the Albert.io questions still in front of you, write down any key terms you came across. Look over the list and highlight any terms or concepts that factored into a question you missed, or any you do not recognize or are still confused about.
Day 2
– Repeat the multiple choice practice procedure outlined on the previous day for the fourth section of Albert.io practice questions, titled “Institutions of National Government.” The subsections that make up this set are titled “Arrangements of Power,” “Relationships Between Institutions and Balance of Power,” and “Linkages with External Parties.” Remember to do one easy, one moderate, and one difficult question from each subsection.
Take a few notes on the explanations given for any question that you got wrong or that you had difficulty with, and be sure to write down the question name and number so you can come back and re-read the explanation later.
– Repeat the multiple-choice practice procedure for the fifth section, “Public Policy,” made up of the subsets called “Policy making in a Federal System,” “The Formation of Policy Agendas,” “The Role of Institutions in the Enactment and Interpretation of Policy,” “Linkages with Institutions and External Parties,” and “Courts and Bureaucracy in Policy Implementation and Interpretation.”
– Repeat this procedure with the sixth and final section, which is called “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.” The subsets of this section are called “Development of Civil Rights and Liberties by Judicial Interpretation,” “Substantive Rights and Liberties,” and “Impact of the 14th Amendment.”
– Before moving on to the task of the day, take a break from multiple-choice questions and write a brief paragraph on the difference between civil rights and civil liberties.
When you are confused about other similar terms later on, try looking them up and then writing a paragraph or designing a chart comparing and contrasting them. The AP® US Government and Politics Exam is more heavily focused on terminology than most AP® Exams are, and many legal and political terms can seem confusing to students.
– Do the same thing you did at the end of your session yesterday, writing down all the key terms you come across and highlighting those that you don’t recognize or that caused you to miss a question. Write down your correct and incorrect answers and percentage of correct answers again.
Day 3
– Look over your list of key terms with difficult terms highlighted. Define the first 10-20 terms, identifying each with a brief definition (from a textbook or dictionary) and 2-4 sentences on its significance to the subject.
– For any highlighted terms, take much more extensive notes on a separate piece of paper, focusing on the term’s/object’s/concept’s relationships with other important concepts, items, and events detailed in this course. Use your textbook and any other reliable written or online resources.
– Use your textbook to look up any key terms you may have missed for the first section, “Constitutional Foundations of the U.S. Government,” and add these to your list.
– Use your notecards, Quizlet, or another flashcard site to begin making flashcards for the terms you have defined. Try to break down the wordier, fuller definitions in your notes to 2-5 concise bullet points for each term.
Note – although it is more convenient to make flashcards online and to type notes up, you should try to do one of these two activities by hand, as the act of writing things down will help you remember them. Because the flashcards will be gone over more extensively than the notes and are less thoroughly engaging than making the notes, I recommend handwriting the notes and making the flashcards online, but this can be changed to suit your taste.
Day 4
– Look over the notes you made yesterday, focusing on the extensive notes on difficult terms. Highlight any sections in the notes you need to do more work on or pay special attention to later.
– Do 5 questions from each subset of the “Constitutional Underpinnings of the U.S. Government” section at Albert.io, for a total of 30 questions – mix a few easy, moderate, and difficult questions in, and be sure to thoroughly read the provided explanations for any questions you get incorrect or have difficulty with and at least look the explanation over for questions you get right, as it can often clarify other terms and ideas which relate to the question.
– Continue your notes on terms from yesterday and attempt to get through all of the terms for the first section, “Constitutional Underpinnings of the U.S. Government,” using the same procedure outlined for yesterday.
– Continue working on flashcards.
Day 5
– Look over the notes you made over the past two days, especially focusing on the difficult terms, any highlighted sections, and the terms used and defined in the first section of the course, “Constitutional Underpinnings of the US Government.” Continue to highlight any particularly difficult sections.
– Sketch a simple diagram showing how the three branches of government check and balance each other. Although there are similar diagrams online and probably in your textbook, try to draw this and fill it in from memory. Then check it against an outside resource, congratulating yourself on everything you got right and adding anything you forgot.
– Open the AP® Central document on the checking-and-balancing relationship between Congress and the President and read the introduction and at least two of the articles included, including No. 5, “The Problem of Divided Government in an Era of Polarized Parties” by Jeffery A. Fine. Take notes as you read.
– Write a summary of the introduction and each article you read, and think about the benefits the checks and balances between the legislature and the executive, and about the difficulties they cause as well.
– Finish up your notes on Topic I and look them over again. Read about the topic “Constitutional Underpinnings of United States Government” on pages 6 and 7 of the Course Description. Do you feel you understand everything you need to? Tomorrow will be a mock AP® exam focused on this section – are you ready?
– Use any extra time you have to continue your flashcards. Try to get at least halfway through your flashcards for the first section.
Day 6
Because today’s study exercises will make up a sort of mini-AP® exam, try to complete today’s tasks in as test-like a condition as possible, with no help from notes or friends.
– Finish the multiple choice questions for the first section, “Constitutional Underpinnings of the US Government,” but don’t look at the explanations for each question yet – simply mark which questions you feel you need to look over the explanations for.
– Try your hand at an FRQ – although you have probably completed FRQs/essay questions in class, this is an important part of your study routine, as FRQs are an important part of your test. Do the 4th FRQ from the year 2011. Try to complete it in 25 minutes, as this is roughly the amount of time you should spend on each FRQ during the exam, since you are allotted 100 minutes to complete 4 questions.
– Attempt another FRQ – the third essay question from the same year. If this one seems more difficult, don’t be too disheartened; you will be reviewing this type of information extensively in the coming week. Just do your best!
– 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 2011 – 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 to complete your flashcards for the first section.
Start your AP® US Government Prep today
Day 1
– Review your flashcards from the first week, marking any that give you trouble for further study.
– Read the topic “Political Beliefs and Behaviors” on page 7 of the Course Description. Take a few notes or highlight the sections you want to remember. Keep in mind that the same people who write and grade the exam write these descriptions of each section and what a student should know about each topic, so this is a very valuable study tool.
– Add any terms for this section you don’t already have on your list, using your textbook or another reliable course-related information source to see what you need. Begin defining these terms, highlighting the ones you don’t recognize, and taking extensive notes on those. Try to get through at least half of the terms for this section.
– Begin making flashcards for these terms and re-reading your notes and highlighting important sections.
Day 2
– Look back through the notes you completed yesterday, highlighting any difficult or highly important sections – perhaps in different colors.
– Go to your Albert.io test prep questions, focusing on the second section, “Political Beliefs and Behaviors.” Do 4 questions from each of the subsets. This will bring your total for today to 20 questions.
This may not seem like very many, but remember to keep your note-taking on the explanations extensive and to add any more terms or concepts you want notes and flashcards on to your list.
– Continue working through your list of vocabulary and concepts – try to get the second section, “Political Beliefs and Behaviors,” finished today.
– Continue making flashcards for this section.
Day 3
– Finish your Section II flashcards.
– Read the topic “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media” on pages 7 and 8 of the Course Description. Take notes or highlight as you go along.
– Using your textbook or another high-quality resource with vocabulary information (or your own notes from class and homework), add to your list of key terms for Section III.
– Begin working down the list, defining terms with their significance and taking extensive notes on difficult and unfamiliar terms. Try to get through at least half of the key terms for Section III before the end of your session today.
– Use your extra time to start making flashcards for this section, “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media.”
Day 4
– Continue working on your flashcards. Try to get at least 2/3 of your Section III flashcards finished today.
– Go through your notes on Sections I and II and also test yourself with those flashcards. Mark or highlight anything you’re having difficulty with, as usual.
– Choose a subject from Section I or II you’re having particular difficulty with and try writing a paragraph about it or explaining it to a friend or family member – or, if you can’t, try researching it independently or talking it over with your teacher or study group.
Day 5
– Go back through the notes you made over the past two days extensively. Also spend a little time with your older notes, from Sections I and II, especially on topics that confused you yesterday.
Are you starting to remember information well? If not, you may want to try new techniques for going over your notes such as reading them aloud, rewriting them, or explaining the concepts that give you trouble to a friend or family member who isn’t overly knowledgeable in this subject – see if you can make him or her understand it. If re-reading your notes and highlighting them doesn’t work for you, get creative and think of various ways you can increase your ability and conference with your notes.
– Go to Albert.io. Today you will be completing 18 questions from Section III, “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media” – six from each of the three subsets, “Political Parties and Elections,” “Interest Groups and PACs,” and “Mass Media.” Remember to read Albert.io’s explanations for each question, especially those that you missed or that gave you difficulty, and take notes on them. Add any new key or difficult terms to your list for Section III.
– Continue working through your list of terms and concepts. Try to get the terms for Section III done today.
– Continue working on your flashcards. Try to get about 2/3 of Section III’s terms on flashcards by the end of today’s session.
Day 6
– This week’s sixth session is going to be split into 2 distinct periods – a review period and a self-assessment period, which will be like your mock AP® exam from last week, but shorter. If you choose to split your sixth session across two days, that will be very easy here; if you do not, do take a short break between the review session and the testing session to stay relaxed and so you are not taking the test having just had review material directly in front of you.
As with last week, try to make the conditions for the self-assessment portion of today’s learning as test-like as possible, with no external help.
Review Period
– Complete the flashcards for Section III if you haven’t already. Look over your flashcards for Sections I and II.
– Look over the second FRQ you completed last week – FRQ 3 from 2011’s test. Having reviewed information on political behaviors and political parties this week, think about what you would have done differently. Congratulate yourself on anything you got right before the review and keep anything you got wrong or left out in mind.
– Look through your terms and concepts notes for Section III, continuing to highlight difficult and important sections and pay special attention to any previously highlighted sections.
– Jot down a few characteristics of each major political party in the US and the names and descriptions of a few significant third parties (Green Party, Libertarian Party, etc.), keeping the names of important party politicians of today and the recent past in mind as you do so.
Then write down the names of 5-10 interest groups along with their ideological alignment (liberal, conservative, moderate, far right, far left, libertarian, etc.) and a few characteristics – keep in mind that some interest groups, such as AARP, do not have an ideological alignment, but do have certain issues they keep at the forefront of their lobbying and marketing efforts.
Check this information against anything you have on political parties and interest groups in your notes and textbook. Think about the ways parties and interest groups A) serve as an outlet and focus for individuals’ political beliefs and behaviors, B) interact with one another, and C) positively and negatively affect the political system.
Self-Assessment Period
– Go to Albert.io, focusing on Sections II and III, “Political Beliefs and Behaviors” and “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media.” Complete ten questions from each subset of these two sections that has more than ten questions remaining, for each subset that has fewer, go ahead and complete the whole subset.
Remember, do this in test-like conditions, and don’t look over the answer explanations until later!
– Go to 2012’s FRQs on AP® Central. Complete questions 3 and 4 – question 4 is a review of what you’ve gone over this week and question 3 will require you to logically put together information from this and last week. Think carefully and analytically, and give yourself about 25 minutes/question (50 minutes total).
– Now that you’re done with this week’s mini-test, relax a little before going over your answers. Focus on reading through the explanations for each multiple choice question on Albert.io and comparing your FRQs to the Scoring Guidelines and Student Samples for 2012. As with last week, it may be beneficial to enlist the help of a friend or family member to help you look over your FRQs.
Start your AP® US Government Prep today
Day 1
Today will be a big review day and will lay the foundation for studying the additional material we’re going to add in this week.
– Finish any flashcards for the first through third sections you haven’t gotten to already, then review all flashcards for those sections, marking the ones that give you trouble.
– Briefly scan the notes you’ve made for any terms or concepts whose flashcards gave you difficulty. If you don’t have extensive notes on one or more of these topics, make them.
– Read the information on Section IV, “Institutions of National Government,” which is on page 8 of your Course Description, taking notes or highlighting as you do so. Keep in mind that you will need to be able to meet all the requirements laid out in this section to perform well on questions relating to this topic on the AP® Exam.
– Watch or listen to the national news (CNN, NPR, PBS, or a world news program on a major broadcasting network such as ABC World News) or read a few articles from a national newspaper or news/politics magazine (online or in print).
Summarize one feature or article on a topic covered in Section I, II, or III and another feature or article concerning one or more of the four institutions (the Presidential administration, Congress, the federal courts system, and the federal bureaucracy) that this section of the course is concerned with. This summary can consist of A) writing a paragraph or two or B) explaining the events and how they relate to AP® US Government and Politics to a classmate, teacher, friend, or family member.
– Continue working on your terms and concepts notes and flashcards, focusing on Section IV, “Institutions of National Government.”
Day 2
– We’ll start today with some multiple choice questions – go to Albert.io and do ten questions for the first two subsets of Section IV: “Arrangements of Power” and “Relationships Between Institutions and Balance of Power.” Also do five questions from the third subset, “Linkages with External Parties.” Remember to add any new key or difficult terms to your notes and flashcard list, and take extensive notes on those observations – they’ll be a big help if you get similar questions on the exam itself.
– Continue working on your vocabulary notes and flashcards. Try to get halfway through your notes and through a third of your flashcards for this section, “Institutions of National Government.”
– Look over your correct answer percentages on the set of questions you did at the beginning of the study guide and the two mini-AP® exams (assignments for Day 6 of each of the past two weeks). Are you improving? If not, think about any difficulties that may have come up (really tired one day, one topic being harder for you than the others) and any ways you can improve your study patterns, such as going over your notes in new ways, as suggested back in Week Two.
Good self-assessment can be time-consuming and the results sometimes difficult to face, but it’s an important part of any study program. You don’t want all this effort to be wasted, and a good honest look at your results will help you improve your study habits so you can perform better come test day!
Also be sure you getting good amounts of nutritional food, sleep, and exercise to keep your mind and body healthy for this rigorous study program and the exam itself.
Day 3
– Finish your notes for Section IV, “Institutions of National Government,” and at least 2/3 of your flashcards for that section.
– Read Section VI, “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,” on pages 8 and 9 of your Course Description. Take notes or highlight as with other sections of the Course Description.
Note: This section’s formatting can be a bit confusing, because Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is Section VI in the AP® Course Description, but Section V on Albert.io. Because “Public Policy,” the fifth section in the AP® Course Description, is longer and more complex than this one and because it overlaps with all of the other sections, we will be studying it last, during week four. As such, during the rest of this guide, “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” will be referred to by its full name instead of a section number; the same will be true of “Public Policy” next week.
– Also read all of the AP® Central Special Focus Material “The Incorporation Doctrine” and take notes on it. Because this is a longer piece and divided into several sections written by different authors, feel free to take breaks and work on flashcards or notes.
Think about the role the Fourteenth Amendment plays in the protection or lack thereof of certain civil rights and liberties for certain groups of people. Also think about any current events related to civil rights and liberties you may have seen recently, and, if it helps, talk about them with a friend or write about them a bit.
– Start working on terms and concepts notes for “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.” Use your textbook or another AP-level information source to expand your list of terms if necessary.
– Finish your flashcards from Section IV, “Institutions of National Government,” and start working on flashcards for “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.”
– Reread the paragraph you wrote during Week One on the difference between civil rights and liberties. Is there anything you would like to add? Is the writing clear?
Day 4
– Review all of your flashcards for Section IV, “Institutions of National Government.”
– Look over your notes on your readings yesterday and any terms and concepts notes that have been giving you a hard time. Check yourself with a few (maybe ten or fifteen) flashcards from the first three sections at random to make sure you’re retaining this knowledge. If you’re having difficulty, try looking over your notes for those terms and concepts again.
– Do ten Albert.io questions for each of the first two subsets of the “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” section, “Development Judicial Interpretation” and “Substantive Rights and Liberties.” Also do five questions from the third subset, “Impact of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Remember to take notes and read the explanations, as before.
Think about the ways in which the articles you read yesterday and any current events dealing with civil rights and liberties relate to these questions.
– Choose a few landmark Supreme Court cases from your notes or textbook and write a one or two sentence description of each without referencing any outside material. Then check yourself against your notes or book. When you review notes and flashcards, be sure to look over landmark court cases, as they are often very difficult to memorize and always come up at least a few times on the AP® Exam.
If you have extra time on any day during the rest of this study guide or at the end, and you are a student who has particular difficulty with memorizing court cases, try completing this exercise a few more times throughout the rest of the time before the exam, with different court cases.
– Continue working on notes and flashcards.
Day 5
– Finish your flashcards and notes for “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” and for any of the other sections you haven’t already finished.
– Reread any highlighted notes and check yourself with one quarter to one half of the flashcards from each section at random. Are you retaining information well? Review any sections or concepts that give you particular difficulty extensively.
– Watch or read the news again, and summarize two articles or features, thinking about how they relate to one or more of the major themes or sections of this course.
– Get a good night’s sleep and plan to eat a good breakfast and take a large mock AP® exam tomorrow!
Day 6
– Go to Albert.io and complete 40 new multiple choice questions from across the five sections we have studied so far, being sure to mix in all three difficulty levels. Try to get a wide range of material, but at the same time feel free to focus on the section(s) you’ve been having the most difficulty with throughout your study time – if there aren’t enough questions remaining in the section(s) you had the most difficulty with, consider doing another current event summary or an extra FRQ associated with this subject area.
Remember to do these questions in test-like conditions, not reading the explanations yet or allowing yourself outside help.
– Complete the FRQ section for 2010. Again, mimic test-like conditions.
– Take a significant break.
– Return to your completed mock AP® exam. Look over the explanations for all the questions, specifically focusing on those you got wrong.
– Look over your FRQ section and compare it to the Samples and Scoring Guidelines. Look over any additional work you may have done as part of today’s Step One as well. Remember it may be ideal to enlist the help of a friend in self-assessing written work.
– Take a good look at your results and your study patterns over the past three weeks. What has helped and what hasn’t? Really try to figure out what the pros and cons of your current study methods are, and modify them if necessary.
Start your AP® US Government Prep today
Congratulations! It’s almost time for your AP® Exam! With the study guide nearly completed, you should be improving your understanding of all the subject areas we have covered or better understanding how to move forward in the very near future with improving them. Take a moment and think back on your recent successes and on your plans to improve yourself even further, and allow yourself to build up confidence.
Make sure you’re getting the sleep you need this week, and keep reviewing if you have a little extra time!
Day 1
– To warm up, start with 20 Albert.io questions from the section entitled “Public Policy” – 4 from each subset; the subsets are entitled “Policy making in a Federal System,” “The Formation of Policy Agenda,” “The Role of Institutions,” and “Policy Processes.” Take notes and write down terms as usual, and be sure to carefully read the explanations Albert.io provides.
– Read the “Public Policy” section on page 8 in the Course Description. Think about how public policy and its subsequent interpretation and application are the final result of everything else you have studied this year. Also think about how the interpretation and application of policy can become policy in and of itself.
– Begin defining terms and writing significances for the “Public Policy” section. Try to get through a third of them.
– Make flashcards for all the “Public Policy” terms you have finished.
– Finish any notes and flashcards for other sections you haven’t gotten to yet.
Day 2
– Begin by reviewing 30-40 random flashcards from all other sections.
– Continue making terms and concepts notes for the “Public Policy” section. Review the notes you have already made. Try to finish 2/3 of your notes for this section.
– Make flashcards corresponding to the notes you have made.
– Compile a list of recent (in the past year or so) major public policy decisions, and of older public policy decisions that have had a lasting effect, as you are required to understand the current state of both domestic and foreign policy on the AP® Exam, and as this will make you a better informed citizen. Think about how these decisions came about, what groups may have played a part, and how interpretation and enforcement will or already have affected them.
Try writing this down or discussing it with your teacher or a friend or family member to deepen your understanding and get someone else’s opinions and knowledge.
Day 3
– Begin by reviewing 30-40 more random flashcards from all other sections – try not to do too many of the same ones you did yesterday, unless you are purposefully reviewing those that gave you difficulty.
– Finish making notes and flashcards for the “Public Policy” section. Review them extensively.
– Try a short multiple choice practice – three questions from each subset of the “Public Policy” section. If available, try to do one question of each difficulty level in each subset.
– End by going over any notes on particularly difficult terms and concepts throughout the course – if you have too many to go over in one day, set some aside for review at the end of tomorrow’s session (and the next day’s, if necessary).
Day 4
– Today will be an FRQ day, but first, review about half of your flashcards from the “Public Policy” section at random.
– Choose an FRQ for a year after 2005 for which you have not done any other FRQs as part of your class or this study guide. Complete the entire FRQ packet in 100 minutes under test-like conditions, then self-assess using the attached guides.
– Use any extra time available to go over additional notes or more flashcards.
Day 5
– Try your hand at the other half of your flashcards from the “Public Policy” section. Go over the notes for the “Public Policy” section one more time.
– Review the rest of your flashcards from other sections. Go over notes as well, skimming for all terms and concepts and reading fully for any difficult terms/highlighted sections.
– Reread all the writing assignments you have completed as part of this study guide. Are they clear and concise? Do they communicate your ideas effectively? Are your ideas correct and fully elaborated upon?
– Tomorrow will be a large mock AP® exam that will help prepare you for the real test. Treat it as much like the real test as possible, and start tonight by going over the behaviors you will use the night before the test (bed at a good time, some relaxing and enjoyable activity to relax with, etc.).
Day 6
Note: Because this day’s study plan is supposed to be as much like the AP® Exam as possible, take a break between the two sections, but do not spread the actual testing part across two days unless it is absolutely impossible for you to complete it in one. This section is supposed to serve not only as a review, but as a confidence-builder, because you will have already worked under test-like conditions multiple times before taking the real exam.
You may, however, leave the assessment of your results until the next day.
– Complete all remaining Albert.io multiple choice questions from all sections. Take each subsequent question from a subsection other than the one the question that preceded it was in, until this is no longer possible.
– Complete a full FRQ packet from a year you have not already done in class or as part of this guide. Give yourself 100 minutes to complete this task.
– Assess your results.
– Use any extra time to study notes and flashcards in areas that still gave you problems.
If you have a day or two (or more) left before the exam, keep using your notes, flashcards, and written work to review, as well as thinking about class material as you watch the news, discuss current events, etc. You may also want to try the free AP® Exam available at AP® Central – though you may have seen some of these questions before, doing an officially formatted AP® exam under test-like conditions can help boost your confidence.
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® US Government exam?
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