How to get a 5 in APES

Title image credit to CollegeBoard

The APES exam can be a daunting challenge, especially if you don’t know how to navigate the course and properly study. I asked previous students who had gotten a 5 and Mr. Alex on tips to study for the test. 

by: Moksh

APES is a tough class, especially being the only AP class you take in 9th grade. Getting a 5 can be daunting, due to the enormous amount of information and interactions you need to memorize. I asked a few people who had gotten a 5 in the AP exam in previous years, and Mr. Alex for some advice on organizing the information you learn in lessons and how to properly study for the AP test.

1. The most important thing Mr.Alex said was to ask questions in class. If you’re embarrassed to ask questions during class, there’s always time after class or during lunch. It’s better to ask a question as soon as possible, rather than waiting even if it is a small question as that can make you not feel confident about the concept as a whole.
   1. To help with this you could always ask Mr. Alex to check your class notes to see if there was something you missed or wrote down wrong. This will help you build confidence in a topic and better understand it. it
2. Ask for practice questions from Mr. Alex. The best time would be right after a lesson or the day after so you can still remember what you learned. Try to do this semi-regularly even for topics you feel you understand well.
   1. Examples of this would be asking about the different cycles of El Niño and La Niña

These are tips from students who have gotten a 5 on the APES test

3. It’s important to take a lot of practice tests prior to the APES test. Starting around March, I started taking practice tests once a week, either from AP prep books at school or online resources. These helped me get over my test anxiety and see what exactly I needed to work on. When taking these, it is important to simulate the environment the APES test would be taken. One example would be, waking up at 7 and taking the test at 8 AM on weekends.
   1. Outside of practice tests, you could ask Mr. Alex to send out extra problems from the College Board Website which are at the difficulty of the APES test and can help you focus on certain topics.
4. Around 2 weeks before the test, College Board releases a series of videos covering all of the topics in APES and how to answer their questions specifically. There are similar videos from prior years if you want to watch them earlier. The most important part would probably be how to answer the FRQs and how specific wording in the questions can be a massive hint at how they want the answers to be written.

It can seem difficult at first, especially heading into the new year with almost half of the topics covered already, but the most important thing is practice. Mr. Alex and online practices are extremely valuable resources that will help your journey to a successful exam. Good luck!

Souce: Albert APES score calculator