Taking Advanced Placement (or “AP”) classes in high school are very important to completing lower division requirements in college, yet they move at a fast pace and try to cover dense material as quickly as possible. AP History classes, such as U.S. History (APUSH), European History (EHAP), World History (WHAP), and Art History provide a very unique set of difficulties since they are all covering such a broad and substantial amount of information. Here are some good study tips that might make your life a little easier in these classes:

1. Make a timeline – a list of dates or a timeline written in chronological order will help keep track of important events, the key players and the significance of the event.
2. Keep multiple lists – This is a great way of keeping track and studying the various leaders, governments and political movements that occur. Write a small paragraph under each word to have short and easily memorable ideas that are easy to understand for complex essay writing assignments.
3. Print out maps – both from the time period you are studying and the present. Coupled with your timeline, this is a great start to visually understanding connections between countries of the past and now. Everything will make more sense!
4. Keep a record of vocabulary, chapter by chapter – A small vocabulary list is also important for quick studying, so when test time arrives you have cumulative, yet specific, information to look over instead of a huge textbook.
5. Skim through the chapter first – This will give the overall sense of what the main purpose is, then you can go back to the beginning of the chapter and read it with that purpose in mind. For instance, if the main purpose of the chapter is Neolithic civilizations in Africa and their significance to archeology and present day African civilizations, then you know to read for types of Neolithic African civilizations, their region on a map, their artifacts, their religious beliefs, their language, etc.

Although history has a bunch of memorization, try not to think about it in that way. Understanding the concept is the most important thing. History is a story of the past, so when you read pretend it’s a story instead of a bunch of dates, names and facts. Furthermore, learning about history is really about understanding the significance of events to both the time period you are studying and the present day; when you read and take notes, always write the significance.

Example of a Pre-History Timeline one might use.