Take APUSH

This post is aimed towards the sophomores at my school who have to decide between APUSH (advanced placement U.S. history) and normal history.

Although it says 5 hours of homework per week in the course catalog, APUSH really doesn't give that much. In reality, it probably only takes 5 hours of note taking to finish the homework for an entire 2-3 week-long unit. And, that's only if you take moderately good notes. Your notes are up to you--Mr. J mostly checks that you have done them, not exactly what you have written. To him, the notes are for you to learn the material. However, the better the notes you take, the better you do on your tests, pretty much guaranteed.

The multiple choice tests are the hardest I've ever taken. Nowhere else do I ever find questions where I can eliminate none of the options. The plain recall questions pale in comparison to the historical analysis ones. For example, putting disconjoined events in chronological order when the American Pageant, our textbook, throws information in some convoluted thematical progression is tough. Pairing people up with their ideas and matching quotes to people are other tough questions. There are answer choices that have a date intentionally different so as to make that choice invalid. Getting a 75ish% on this section equals a 5 on the AP test, so the actual AP test should be simple.

Essays are actually your friend on the AP test. Two in 70 or one every 35 minutes is not too bad (remember that the SAT asks for one in 25 minutes). As long as you can flow your ideas well and logically tie everything back to the thesis, you will do well. The third essay, a 60-minute section with a mandatory 15-minute reading period, is basically an essay with a cheat booklet that you can pull information from. Getting around a B+ on an APUSH class essay correlates with a 5 on the actual AP test.

Do not be put off by the application and summer work--those are supposed to scare you off and do not realistically show the actual workload.

The benefits of taking APUSH far exceed the hardships. From this class, I developed skimming and notetaking skills that will help in upper-level courses. I've learned to look at everything thematically. Your views of the world will be completely changed once you take the class. You'll not only gain insight into why the world works the way it does, but you learn about cyclic trends that are still recurring. Liberalism to conservatism, expansion to decline, boom to bust all are occuring today and are even more relevant as they cycle faster and faster as technological innovation in communication and transportation speed our world up. By looking at the way groups have behaved in the past, you'll see how and why people act and think the way they do today. To me, APUSH was a life-changing course.