Tips to Do Your Best on AP Exams

by Katherine Van Schaik (pictured here with Claes Nobel at member event on the Harvard campus)

  • Listen to your teacher. He or she is the one who is most familiar with the course material and with the structure of the exam. Your teacher is your local authority on all the questions you have about anything exam-related, especially what aspects of the course you should focus on the most when you study.
  • Start studying early. Don't wait until 3 days before the exam to review the material from your first month of class. Start reviewing at least 2 weeks before the exam. This will give you plenty of time to look over the material and ask your teacher any questions you might have.
  • Take practice tests. The best way for you to prepare for the real test is to take lots of practice tests under real testing conditions. The actual testing time for the average AP exam is 2-3 hours--set aside this exact block of time to take your practice test. Often, test takers will make careless errors out of test fatigue- they're just sick of taking a test, and who can blame them? You'll be able to mitigate, if not entirely prevent, the effects of test fatigue if you practice taking the test under what I call "endurance conditions." In a way, it's like what a long distance runner does to practice. The best training for a distance runner isn't a bunch of really fast, 5 minute runs; the best training involves moderate pacing over an extended period of time. Keep this in mind when you take your practice tests.
  • Get plenty of sleep and eat a good breakfast on the morning of the exam. Yes, everybody says this, but that's only because it's true. It's a fact that your brain and body will function better if they are well-rested and provided with sufficient energy. This DOESN'T mean you should down 3 cups of coffee to keep yourself awake, especially if you're not used to the effects of caffeine in the morning. In fact, caffeine has a couple of detrimental effects: it can dehydrate you, and it can give you headaches if you're not used to it.
I know that NSHSS students are all high-achievers, and that many students might want to take AP exams independently, without a class or a teacher. For this situation, I've put together an additional tip list:
  • Invest in a test prep book. Since you won't have a teacher to provide you with review material, you'll have to get it yourself. Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble both have entire store sections devoted to these prep books. Find a prep book that you're comfortable with, and treat it like you would a textbook for a course.
  • Find a subject-area contact at your school who can answer questions. While your school might not have an AP Biology teacher, for example, any biology teacher should be able to answer questions you might have about the AP subject matter. (Remember, AP courses are equivalent to an introductory college course, which any teacher in any subject area will have had to take to fulfill his or her degree requirements for a major). This way, you're not completely lost if/when questions arise.
  • Contact your school's exam coordinator to let him/her know about your plans to take an exam independently. If you fail to contact your school's AP exam coordinator, then this person will not know to order an exam for you. Be sure to do this early - typically, coordinators order exams in January/February.
Most importantly (and this goes for everybody), relax! If you do poorly on an AP exam, it's not the end of the world. Many colleges accept scores of 3 or 4 (on a scale of 5) as scores that are good enough to demonstrate an understanding of the material. Do remember, though, colleges vary in terms of the scores they  accept. Some schools only accept scores of 5. Also remember that AP courses are designed to be college equivalency courses--in other words, if you don't do as well as you would have liked, you'll still have another chance to learn the same material again in college and another chance to show mastery of it.