Nowadays, studying for AP exams can be done successfully by just utilizing your online resources or leveraging the practice problems in your textbooks to boost your critical thinking. However, a shift from teacher-guided learning to self-directed studying requires planning ahead and having a game plan to follow to maximize your AP scores. Self-studying for an AP exam comes with its own benefits as well, including adhering to your own schedule, only applying your favorite method of learning, being able to focus exclusively on your mistakes on practice assessments, and even choosing what online tools you can use to improve.
Creating a Study Schedule
Oftentimes, students fall under a spell by creating their schedule as time progresses, rather than scheduling proactively. AP exams generally cover material that spans the course of a few months of learning, if not, a year’s worth of content.
Here is a four-pronged approach to creating a study schedule backwards, starting from test day:
- Mark your AP exam test day on your calendar and count the number of days/months from your present day to the exam date.
- Create a separate document, virtual or hardcopy, that outlines a study plan in this structure:
- 65% of your study days should be dedicated towards learning the material
- 20% should be dedicated towards reviewing all units and practicing active recall
- 15% should be dedicated towards practice tests and FRQ preparation.
- In the first phase (learning the material), map out each learning topic and set a realistic timeframe (in hours) to study each topic. Once you go through each topic, attach Quizlet links that go through the topic and take practice quizzes on the Magna Education dashboard to rehearse your understanding. Even consider noting down your last practice quiz score on Magna as fuel to do better on the next one!
- Be aware of other priorities, and don’t be surprised if you need to attend emergency commitments. Establishing fluidity with your schedule and having an understanding it will often change is key to preventing negligence and will keep you on track.
Self-Study Methods – Cornell Notes
Do you ever get bored of just simply reading line after line and underlining or highlighting keywords/phrases you might even forget later? When self-studying for an AP exam, you need to vary your learning strategies and utilize your resources to maximize your productivity.
Starting with some learning and note-taking strategies, consider Cornell notes, the Feynman Technique, and visual representations.
Cornell notes are effective in taking notes, as you can ponder big questions/mention key ideas in the left margin and then answer those questions or elaborate on some ideas with detailed notes on the right margin. Usually, the right margin tends to be bigger than the left to allow you to input more detail and fully flesh out your ideas/thoughts.
Additionally, at the bottom of your notes, add a section to summarize everything you learned in that certain topic, because when you refer to your notes later, you can go through a broad overview of this section of your notes. To learn more about the Cornell note-taking system, visit this link.
Self-Study Methods – The Feynman Technique
The Feynman Technique is also a good method of understanding material. This involves breaking down your detailed notes and key points to a high level. At a high level, you should be able to teach and explain the topic to an individual with no prior knowledge. When you practice with the Feynman Technique, you can fill in holes in your learning and make the tested material easier for you to grasp.
For example, implementing this technique with AP Biology, you might be able to break down and explain the concept of Mitosis and the cell cycle down into an acronym “PPMAT,” standing for Prophase, Prometaphase, Metaphase, Anaphase, and Telophase.
From there, you can explain how Prophase is the phase where chromosomes (pages) coil and are bound into chromatin (a book) and spindle fibers (librarians) get ready to do their job. Prometaphase is an intermediate phase in which the first spindle fiber (head librarian) connects to a sister chromatid. Metaphase is when the chromosomes (books) line up on a shelf, and Anaphase is when the fibers (librarians) split the chromosomes (books) apart into two. Lastly, in Telophase, two new libraries form around the split chromosomes (split books) as cell division occurs.
For more information on the Feynman Technique, visit this link.
Self-Study Methods – Visual Representations
Another important learning modality includes visual representations, which can be in the form of flowcharts, graphs, or diagrams. In elementary school, students are introduced to concepts like Venn Diagrams and arrow charts, which are significantly vital to understand relationships like cause-and-effect, confounding ones, and others. Visual representations are especially useful for learning AP exam content, because certain subjects can cover a myriad of concepts, and they build on each other. For example, in AP U.S. History, creating a timeline of events from when the Native Americans formed tribal nations in the Americas to when the Cold War ended would contain many accounts of events in between.
Practice Tests and Post-Evaluations
Doing practice tests is the most essential thing that any student should take away from this guide to self-studying, because it is the best way to prepare for an AP exam. Many students make a severe mistake in their studying by learning all the content without doing a practice exam, and on AP exam day, they struggle to get through questions and find it hard to even apply their knowledge, even when they are proficient in the content.
Taking practice tests helps you get used to the format of the exam and scheduling full-length practice tests with the allotted time and break timings can help you ease into what you will experience on test day. This will also psychologically build up your mental stamina and condition you to stay focused, as AP exams tend to last for several hours.
The second half of taking practice tests happens right after you take one: a performative review of your work. Take a close look at your mistakes and even try lumping them into common ideas/concepts you could not grasp well. Also look at the types of questions you struggled with and look through questions that took you a good amount of time to answer. Conducting a post-assessment of your practices helps refine areas of improvement and will prepare you mentally on exam day.
Leveraging Online Resources
As you were probably wondering what resources to use to self-study, look no further! Utilizing the Magna Education dashboard will help highlight your strong/weak areas and even get feedback on where to improve.
On the Magna dashboard, you can time yourself with practice quizzes and once you finish your quizzes, you can get AI-assisted feedback from our friendly chatbot that explains the line of reasoning behind the correct answer and the why the other answer choices are wrong. You may also interact with the chatbot to ask for an extensive explanation on the same question or anything else.
You can also observe your progress with certain units/topics on the Magna dashboard and concentrate on areas of improvement to effectively study for your next AP exam.
Wrapping it All Up
Even if you just have one month or mere weeks to prepare for your AP exams, follow this guide to make the most of your time. By creating an outline to lay out how you’d like to study for each AP exam, you will prevent future overwhelm that might surround you near test day and even achieve personal progress towards a goal you set with your AP exams in a limited time frame.
To boost your AP scores today, head over to magnaeducation.ai and start unpacking practice quizzes on any topic!