The Insider's Complete Guide to AP US History

AP US History: A Strategic Review, Second Edition, offers unique materials designed to help you achieve a high score on your APUSH exam. Before explaining why this book is unique, let me begin with two fundamental questions. First, how many points are on the APUSH exam? And second, how many points do you need to earn a five, four, or three? Most students do not know the answers to these two questions. Many students assume that the APUSH exam contains 100 points, and that they need 90 points for a five, 80 points for a four, and 70 points for a three. These answers are all incorrect. The APUSH exam actually contains a total of 140 points. On the 2019 exam students needed 106 points for a five, 90 points for a four, and 72 points for a three. A grand total of 496,573 students took the 2019 APUSH exam. Of this group, 11.8 percent scored a five, 18.4 percent scored a four, and 23.4 percent scored a three. The remaining 46.3 percent scored ones and twos.These results underscore the fact that the APUSH exam will present you with a challenging test of your level of preparation. Given this formidable challenge, what is the best strategy for achieving a three, four, or five and avoiding a one or two? Teachers traditionally use a chronological approach. That is, they begin their course in 1491 and then teach a series of chronological units. Although their intent is to reach the twenty-first century, most fall short of this goal. APUSH prep books mirror this chronological approach. They present thousands of facts in a condensed version of a college textbook. This attempt to cover everything turns reviewing into a tedious and boring exercise in memorization. AP US History: A Strategic Review, Second Edition, offers a very different plan for helping you successfully prepare for the APUSH exam. Instead of providing you with yet another chronological review, this book takes a strategic approach designed to identify the core material you need to study in order to earn a three, four, or five. Our strategic approach is based on three central facts. First and foremost, the APUSH exam does not test students on a random group of questions. Instead, exam questions cluster around key historic topics, clearly identified in the APUSH Course Framework. Second, these central topics can be identified by carefully studying the Framework and released exams. And finally, the core topics can be organized into chapters that make history interesting and memorable.