So your decided to take the AP World History Exam, PROPS to you.
Will it be easy? No. However, it’s possible to pass depending how much work are you willing to put in, the more you practice the better you will do.
As a World History teacher I will share with you some tips you can use to help improve and pass the AP Exam.
Hopefully, at this point you should be aware of how the World History AP exam is formatted. If not here is a quick review:
You will notice the multiple choice is worth 40% and at first would think this is all I need to make sure I do great in. Right? NOPE.
When you combine the Short Answer Question (SAQ), Document Based Question (DBQ), and the Long Essay Question (LEQ) it’s worth a total of 60% of the overall exam. Meaning you can get all the multiple choice questions right and still FAIL the exam. Now you still want to make sure you try your best in the multiple choice but don’t put all your hopes in this section.
The best way to ensure you pass, is you must practice on your writing skills and I recommend you first focus on the SAQ section. Why? Because it’s worth 20% of the exam and they’re shorter than having to write the DBQ or the LEQ essays. Below I have tip #1:
Using “ACE” to answer the short answer questions. For example, if the question is asking: Identify and explain the best type of dog in the world (I know they will NOT be asking this).
The best type of dog in the world would be a German pointer.(A) German Pointers have qualities of agility, speed, power, endurance and of course friendliness.(C) The best type of dogs are the ones you are able to play with and spend your quality time when you need a friend and having a German Pointer you are sure to be entertained because of all of their energy. (E)
This sample hopefully helps you understand what you need to do before we apply it to historical content. If you think you are ready, I recommend you start practicing.
This is one question from a previous AP World History Exam used:
Identify ONE economic change in the period 1750-1900 that led to the formation of new elites.
One economic change during the period 1750-1900, leading to a new elite group would be factory-business owners of the Industrial Revolution. (A) Due to the growth of factories and the high demand of manufactured products many factory owners had to create additional factories and hire more workers.(C) This as a result led to a huge gap of income between the wealthy factory-business owners and the middle class creating a new and growing power class that would forever change society. (E)
Other than making sure you answer the question, you must be cautious of TIME. Below is another tip that is extremely important.
You will have 40 Mins to complete all THREE Short Answer Questions. Each question should take NO more than 13 minutes to answer.
3 questions x 13 minute = Total 39 minutes
The next best tip is PRACTICE TIMING YOURSELF answering one Short Answer Question and making sure you keep track and hopefully seeing improvement by the end.
I will be posting more practices later how to recognized ACE with historical content.
Stay tuned for additional information to be added.
