Although my exam isn't until May, I would like to begin reviewing now in order to be sure that I am familiar with the material. How should I divide my study time up and what are the most useful tactics? thanks for any help.
~Shannok

This seems to be the accepted method:

It can be found in context here

I was looking through the previous questions/discussions and I found that earlier. I believe that will help me a lot because I am not particularly fond of the way the American Pageant sets up particular time periods, as sometimes one chapter's events actually precede the previous chapter's events. It makes chronology hard to follow. I appreciate your help. I am new to this site but I have the feeling that I will refer often to it for your advice or help or definitions, etc. By the way, could anyone please provide a 'friendly' (aka: understandable and simple) definition and/or the differences between "vertical integration", "horizontal integration", and "interlocking directorates" (of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan). Thanks again for the comeback on that.

Vertical integration is when a company controls all stages of production for their products; for instance, when an oil company owns the land where the oil deposits are, the drilling equipment that gets it out of the ground, the transports that take it to the refinery, the refinery that processes it into usable gasoline/kerosene/diesel/etc., the transports that deliver the fuel to the filling stations, and the stations themselves, that would be total vertical integration.

Horizontal integration is when a company owns all aspects of an entire class of industry; for instance, if only one company owned every single oil drill, they would have a total horizontal monopoly. They don't necessarily control any other part of the process in production of fuel, but they are monopolizing that one point in the process.

Interlocking directorates is just a fancy way of saying that the members of a board of directors are shared across multiple companies. Thus, while there may not be a direct, open monopoly of any given industry, having pretty much all the same people running the different companies in effect ensures a monopoly because they are obviously not going to compete with themselves.

Just so you know:

The advantage of vertical integration is you get to choose your own prices because you do not have to pay for anything by anyone but yourself. Horizontal and interlocking are both similar methods of attaining a monopoly, which is supposedly illegal now.

Monopolies are not illegal per se; a monopoly simply gets a lot of scrutiny about the fairness of its business practices relative to potential competitors.

Very true. They are almost always found to be in violation of many federal laws, though, if under the proper investigation.

if i make a "scrapbook" per se for the presidents, the major events of each presidency, a short timeline for each "scrapbook page" and such.... would that be useful? i like to go above and beyond to use my creativity, so maybe this would help. what do you think?

I find that putting to use any information helps me to memorize that information. If you find you learn the same way and would enjoy doing something like that rather than just writing it down, go right ahead. It should prove quite effective.