This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌 Overview

• Students are asked to analyze visual representations and text passages while comparing political processes from the 6 core governments of the course
• 50% of Exam Score
• 55 questions
• 60 min, or 1 min 5 sec per question

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💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Though you may have heard it a million times, never underestimate the power of sleep. Taking the test with a fresh and rested mind will help you feel so much more at ease with the testing environment and the test itself.
  • To build on this, make sure you eat a well rounded meal before the exam. Making sure you have fuel to take the exam is super important. You won’t be able to focus fully if you’re hungry.
• Do not forget to time yourself as you take practice exams! Sometimes we tend to get lost in the questions or in the content but if you do not finish on time, all the answers you did not bubble will be WRONG.
• We understand that the content for an AP exam can be very dense. We advise reviewing the content the day before the exam with flashcards and mind maps. This will help your brain to organize the content and make connections more quickly.
• Analyze the format of the AP Exam and the types of questions you can encounter. The AP Comp course inherently expects students to become skilled in drawing comparisons between countries. Practice thinking about similarities and differences between the six nations included in this class.

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🤔 Before you Bubble

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start answering?

• Take a few deep breaths to re-center your focus on the exam. It is important to block any “outside noise” to concentrate on the exam.
• Once you get started - keep in mind that you might be a little “slower” in the beginning as you get into the rhythm of the exam. Make sure you read the questions attentively and efficiently. Although these exams are fast-paced, it is crucial to make sure that you are answering the prompt.

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🤓 Understanding the Sources

• Though it may seem that the test consists solely of understanding the political structures of the 6 countries, you also have to understand how these structures affect a citizenry. You must know how a political change affects the freedoms and/or rights of a people and how certain systems may apply to other citizenries as well APPLICATION.
• Not only is it important to understand the countries, but the point of the course is to be able to COMPARE them to each other, make sure to study the differences but more importantly, the similarities because those tend to be harder to remember.
• Get familiarized with both types of sources: qualitative and quantitative. Being able to read graphs and interpret texts correctly will help you in the exam.
• Several important geopolitical indexes are crucial for you to also become familiar with (e.g. Human Development Index, GDP, Gini coefficient, etc.). Understand the scales in which they are measured and what factors are used to calculate each. You do not need to understand the complexities of each - simply understand their measures and importance!

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✏️ Choosing the Best Answer

• If you’re placed in the position where you have to take a blind guess for multiple questions, ALWAYS stick with the same answer choice. You are at a statistical advantage by choosing a letter of your choosing for ALL your blind guesses.
• If you’re stuck between answer choices, read them over again. If one of them sounds really good, but you know one little thing is wrong, then it is wrong. The College Board purposefully does this to coerce you into a wrong answer, but never choose an option that you know has something wrong in it (even if it is the tiniest detail) even if the rest of the answer seems perfect.
• Oftentimes the sources for the multiple choice answers can have information that is relevant to the free response questions, if you feel lost on a subject, think back to what you just saw!
• To maximize your time, utilizing the “process of elimination” can help you organize your thoughts for a challenging question. Go over each answer option and try to find any piece of information that seems incorrect.
• If you read a term that is unfamiliar to you in one of the answer choices - do not stress! Re-read the question and try to identify the context/content that the question relates to. By understanding your other choices, you will be able to intuitively draw connections between the answer choices.
• If two (or more) answers are phrased similarly, compare them to find out which parts are different and which are similar. You will be able to identify which question is a better fit faster. Remember - compare and contrast are the key skills for this exam!
• Do not be afraid to skip answers. If you get stuck, move on and come back to them later. Just make sure that you choose an answer for every question, as there is no penalty for wrong answers.