By Jon Mettus
Editor-In-Chief

Each May, after a year of taking some of the hardest courses offered in high school and completing all of the hard work that goes along with them, students are placed in a room with their classmates to take a two to three hour test. Aside from being very expensive, this test is designed to demonstrate what has been learned from September until May and decides if one will receive college credit for their efforts. Here are a few pointers from a senior who has endured this routine three times previously, and will be participating four more times this May.

Before the test
•Don’t try to cram – Studying for an AP test is not like studying for any other test in which one can just cram the night before and get a relatively good grade. Fitting an entire year’s worth of information into one late-night study marathon is bound to be a difficult task – even for those who have done this time and time again. It is best to start studying and reviewing as early as possible – weeks and months before the test. Either way, remembering all the information and doing perfectly is not a realistic goal, but odds are, spreading out spreading out studying will be more effective.
•Buy a review book – A great tool for studying for any AP test is an AP review book. These books are basically a summarized and compacted version of your textbook. They are great for reviewing big ideas and are full of practice problems and practice prompts.
• Buy or make flash cards – Vocabulary is very important in any AP test. It’s necessary to know what each question is asking and to be, at the very least, familiar with all the terms. Using flash cards is an easy and efficient way to study vocab.
•Get a good night’s sleep and eat a healthy breakfast – Staying up late to study may help some, but odds are it’s better just to go to sleep. It’s more difficult to concentrate on the exam while n trying to stay awake. Similarly, there is no food or drink allowed in the testing room. Being hungry is just going to be distracting.
•Come prepared – No matter what test is being taken, everyone needs several No. 2 pencils to complete the multiple-choice section. Additionally, many tests require blue or black pens and/or calculators. No one wants to be scrambling around on the way to the testing room, trying to find someone in order to borrow a pencil. It is also a good idea to bring a watch; it will help with time management.

During the test
•Guess – There will be questions on the AP test are confusing. In most cases, every multiple-choice question is worth the same amount of points. There is no use spending two minutes on one hard question when four or five easy questions could be done in the same amount of time. Just take a good guess and move on. If there is leftover time, students can go back and review the questions that were skipped. Guessing provides, at the very least, a chance of getting the question right, rather than automatically receiving a zero for the blank answers.
•Keep track of time – By the time of the test, each student will most likely have done plenty of practice exams, but they will have little to no practice in the actual testing environment. For each individual, pacing and keeping track of time is key. No one wants to be left with two minutes to do the last free-response portion of his or her test.

For tests with essay portions, it is best not to just go in the order of the prompts. Answer whichever prompts seem easy with first, leaving a harder prompt for the end. The AP readers only have a few minutes to spend reading each essay so it is imperative that each essay is legible, and starts and ends interestingly.