How to Study Efficiently

Yes, AP World can just feel like a lot of work.

There’s so much content to cover, with all these places and peoples, and on top of that there are the three essays you have to write. It is reasonable if you feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

But you can still do it. You can get through the seemingly daunting amount of work and you can get the score you want.

Studying is important but what really matters is studying efficiently. It’s important that you don’t feel fatigued and worsen your health.

My AP World teacher told us that studying for the AP test is like preparing for a marathon. It requires dedication and you can’t slack off and not prepare for it. Similarly, you can’t over-exert yourself and end up feeling exhausted when it’s time to run for the marathon.

Just know that you got this and you are capable of getting the score you want ✌️

Time Management

Try studying at least a month before the AP test and make a study plan to spread out your studying. I highly recommend also checking out Heimler’s 30 Day Prep Plan, a great study plan

“But I only have X amount of weeks/days left, not a month!”

This isn’t a great situation to be in (you yourself probably know this as well). However, not all hope is lost!

Still build a study plan to space out studying but be realistic.

If you only have, say, one week left, it’s unrealistic to try to study each chapter of each unit. Instead, you can maybe watch Heimler’s unit review videos and take notes on that. Although they won’t be as detailed and will cover less content, you will still be reviewing key information that you’ll need for the test.

Take breaks but don’t procrastinate

Stuff like Pomodoro timers are great to ensure this

Follow your study plan as best as possible, but it’s ok if stuff happens. The important thing is to plan ahead to ensure that even if something happens that prevents you from studying, you can still get back on track.

Taking Notes

Don’t be too detailed

The AP test covers the entire curriculum, which means specific details about specific things are most likely not going to be tested
Even if you take the most detailed notes ever, it’s highly unlikely you are going to remember everything anyways
Don’t just take notes on facts: explain why something is important
Take notes of TPEs (terms, places, events), which you will use these as evidence for the written assessments, and emphasize them somehow (bolding, highlighting, underlining, etc)
Keep yourself in check by remembering that in an AP history, the goal isn’t to blindly memorize facts but rather to understand how/why something is important and make connections from that

Keep yourself organized

I highly recommend using Notion to take and organize notes: it’s free and is so much nicer, cleaner, and efficient compared to Google Docs
However, at the end of the day, take notes the way that you think works best for you. It may not be Notion, it may be something else. The important thing is to stay organized while taking these notes.