Hey everyone,
What is the most effective way, in your opinion to memorize events and their respective time periods for essays like the FRQ's on the AP test? I pay attention in class and read my book, but the events don't necessarily stick in my mind like they probably should. I mean, US History is fairly in depth and memorizing all possible events in anticipation of a FRQ is challenging. (I'm decidedly have a bad/untrained memory - for example, on the practice FRQ's we've done, I remembered general things but not specific events)
Thanks
If your teacher idn't do this for you, what you should have done was create a chronological/timeline review all year--each era should have a title, vocab words, important people and major events. You should also have a topical review, where you trace a concept through time. Like "Women's Rights" , you'd start with
Early 1800s -Cult of Domesticity, quick definition if needed
1848 Seneca Fall Convention--Lucretia Mott, EC Stanton, Declaration of Rights and Sentiments
POst Civil War--SB Anthony, argument re 15th Amendment, western states give women right to vote , Wyoming 1st.
1920--19th Amendment
--etc. Do this for religion, court cases, depressions, ethnic groups.
At this point, you're pretty much stuck with whatever study guide you are using, like Barrons or Princeton Review. In addition, if you have time, I'd make a timeline. Take each century, divide it in 2, then write the pertinent major events, people and vocabulary. Highlight stuff that can be mixed up, like Dawes Act and Dawes PLan, Open Door Note is about trade, not immigration--stuff like that.
1600s first half. 1600s second half. ETC.
There are about 50 released FRQs at AP Central. All of the previous ones are available. What I do with my students for review, for 3 weeks before the test, is write nothing but thesis statements and outlines for all of them. It's tedious, but it reviews everything, plus speeds up their prewriting for the Big Day. We do other stuff, too, but that's the main thing.
memorize by presidents, and then order of presidents.
its really not that bad
also, a good source is the barron's book.
or... go to sparknotes testprep, and in the sat2 section for US history, they have like a summary of each time period, and like a vocabulary which is basically all i used to study. it took me like 3 speed-reading days to finish it for the sat and i got a 700, and didnt need to study more for the aps, because same creator = essentially same test.