Stress

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Goth_Catholic

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Well the most stressful week and a half of my life (so far) Is about to begin. Friday I take the AP exam in History and next Wenesday for English (basically the tests are scored on a scale of 1-5, if I get a 5 I defiently get college credit in those courses, I might recieve some sort of credit for a four). I have a problem with panicing and forgeting everything!!! Especially because both these tests inculd timed essays. I’m scared to death, is what i’m basically saying, especially because getting a five would help lower the cost of tutition, and increase my chances for a scholarship. SO MUCH PRESSURE! I’m an A+ student in both classes, but that means nothing if i freeze.

Suggestions and prayers are deeply appreciated. I’m off to cram more US History into my brain.
 
Goth honey, stop the cramming, turn to prayer. Utilize the wonderful repetition of the Rosary - it is not vain repetition, it allows you to relax, mind and body. God knew what He was doing in giving us the Rosary, it is not only spiritually good for you, it is good for your body!

BTW, if you don’t know your history by now, cramming isn’t going to help 😃

Another exercise for you is to imagine the worse that could happen, you get lower than a 4 and no college credit. What did the class give you? I can tell you right now that if your teacher did his/her job you will be much better prepared for College, my own daughter took the AP History and Language Arts courses and did not score well on the test, partly due to stress but having taken the classes during High School she was so prepared for College. She was as prepared or better prepared than many who were Freshmen with her at Saint Louis University and most of her classmates were graduates of prestigious Catholic College Prep High Schools - she was one of 200 or so from a public High School.

Brenda V.
 
I hate to say it, but it gets worse in college. This time last year I was really miserable, especially since I had five projects for 300-level classes due. It was my first semester as a history major and I did not have the historical skills and research class completed, so I was doing everything blindly.

This is my last semester before I graduate and I have a 15-20 page thesis due next Monday (I’m trying to get it done by this Wednesday), plus a 5-7 page essay and another 15 page study to write. I’m surprisingly under no stress this time around.

If you can keep calm, you’ll be fine. The worst thing to do is panic. Just space everything out within their limits and you won’t be overwhelmed.
 
I don’t want to burst your bubble, but only certain colleges will give college credit for certain AP courses. I think high schools tend to overplay this aspect of AP to increase interest in the program. Of course, if you already have a college picked out, this wouldn’t apply to you…

Also, don’t worry about AP classes too much when applying for a scholarship…I took ZERO AP classes, and still got a very good scholarship.
Goth_Catholic said:
Well the most stressful week and a half of my life (so far) Is about to begin. Friday I take the AP exam in History and next Wenesday for English (basically the tests are scored on a scale of 1-5, if I get a 5 I defiently get college credit in those courses, I might recieve some sort of credit for a four). I have a problem with panicing and forgeting everything!!! Especially because both these tests inculd timed essays. I’m scared to death, is what i’m basically saying, especially because getting a five would help lower the cost of tutition, and increase my chances for a scholarship. SO MUCH PRESSURE! I’m an A+ student in both classes, but that means nothing if i freeze.

Suggestions and prayers are deeply appreciated. I’m off to cram more US History into my brain.
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Take some college classes at your local community college. At least you’ll be guaranteed the credit in gen ed areas such as history and english.
 
ack said:
I don’t want to burst your bubble, but only certain colleges will give college credit for certain AP courses. I think high schools tend to overplay this aspect of AP to increase interest in the program. Of course, if you already have a college picked out, this wouldn’t apply to you…

Also, don’t worry about AP classes too much when applying for a scholarship…I took ZERO AP classes, and still got a very good scholarship.
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I know that, that’s why I checked to make sure the colleges I will be applying to in the fall accept AP credit.
 
You could probably could also get credit by taking a CLEP test. If you freeze up on the test, you could probably fall back on that. I would suppose a lot of that depends on your region, and the specific school.

If you could I would trying grinding out the cramming the best you can, and forget about worrying about how well you do. Forget about what it means for college, and the such. If you start to think about it, stop. Just go in and try to fun by enjoying the questions you nail, and quickly answer and move on the ones you are not sure about. Granted that is easier said than done. Don’t forget prayer or meditation either.

As far as cramming, I found it worked rather well for me. Keeping up day to day, I can really get an idea of what is important. That’s typically the stuff that can be useful later. There though is a lot of specific stuff that is just going to be forgotten later. That is typically good for cramming, just to get that in your memory in time of the test. In the end, no matter it’ll be forgotten, or you’ll use it so often the point is rather moot. What is important is that you learn where to go to reference later.
 
hasikelee said:
Take some college classes at your local community college. At least you’ll be guaranteed the credit in gen ed areas such as history and english.
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Hasikelee, AP classes are college level classes, even if not all colleges accept the credit.
 
Just wanted to let you know I’ve been there. I took the U.S. History AP several years ago. I got my 4, which was all I needed to get maximum college credit at my school.

Relax and keep drilling the practice questions. There is A LOT of history so there’s no way you’ll know the answer to every question. But you don’t need know the answers to even close to all of them to get a good score. And my essay question ended up being on FDR, so it wasn’t that bad.

If you’re an A student and you’ve been studying you’ll be just fine. Really.

I’m in exam week too (at college) and I refuse to be stressed out! 😉
 
hasikelee said:
And I’m sure plenty of colleges have classes that are highschool level. 😃

AP classes are way overrated, IMO.
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My AP classes were probably better than most of my college courses. I went to a really good high school though
 
I wasn’t the best of students (studying wise, not grade wise) so take my advice with a grain of salt if you must. The night before a test don’t study. Yes, that’s right, don’t study, just relax and do something that you enjoy. If you don’t know it by now, you won’t really know it by the test time. I always laughed during finals week at college at all my friends who spent all night studying. I would ask them “did you pay attention and do your work throughout the semester?” because if one does pay attention then one needs not to cram. I was always one of the few who actually went out and had fun during finals week. And you know what, I usually did much better than my friends on the exams.

As for the actual exam, get used to essays. That comes with the territory, especially with history and the social sciences. When you’re in the exam, make an outline of the points that you want to hit for the essay before writing and then follow that outline. Making the outline should take you 3 minutes or so during the exam and will make writing the essay SOOOOOOOOO much easier.
 
hasikelee said:
Take some college classes at your local community college. At least you’ll be guaranteed the credit in gen ed areas such as history and english.
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Another area you can’t plan on–my university won’t accept community college credit because they aren’t four-year institutions.

To the OP: Just trust that everything will work out! I took 4 AP exams my junior year…that was a crazy week! But it’s great college prep (as someone else said, it only gets harder…).

For encouragement, maybe look up the grading scales for the exams. It’s not as hard as you might think to get a high score (60% on some exams will give you a 4, I think…or I could be making that up.)
 
Goth, honey, quit stressing.

The worst that could happen: You get less than a 4. You take the CLEP for it that your new college will accept, and still get credit.

I’d take gmarie’s advice. Relax and get some sleep the night before the text.

And do you how to mind dump? You’re allowed a couple blank sheets of paper with the exam. Work it out on paper. Write down everything you can remember. I learend how to do this back in the Navy, and used it later on when I had to take certification exams.
 
Goth, honey, quit stressing.

The worst that could happen: You get less than a 4. You take the CLEP for it that your new college will accept, and still get credit.

I’d take gmarie’s advice. Relax and get some sleep the night before the text.

And do you how to mind dump? You’re allowed a couple blank sheets of paper with the exam. Work it out on paper. Write down everything you can remember. I learend how to do this back in the Navy, and used it later on when I had to take certification exams.
 
Goth_Catholic said:
Well the most stressful week and a half of my life (so far) Is about to begin. Friday I take the AP exam in History and next Wenesday for English (basically the tests are scored on a scale of 1-5, if I get a 5 I defiently get college credit in those courses, I might recieve some sort of credit for a four). I have a problem with panicing and forgeting everything!!! Especially because both these tests inculd timed essays. I’m scared to death, is what i’m basically saying, especially because getting a five would help lower the cost of tutition, and increase my chances for a scholarship. SO MUCH PRESSURE! I’m an A+ student in both classes, but that means nothing if i freeze.

Suggestions and prayers are deeply appreciated. I’m off to cram more US History into my brain.
Click to expand...
I take AP history, Im not to worried about it, and Im getting a B+.
My teacher just tells us to go over time periods, she says dont waste your time doing practice tests,(but I would do some multi choice practice) but master the material (court cases, names, organizations, dates, battles are not major) Heres one thing that helps, go through each decade make a list of 25 terms from those decades (and try to find themes that arise which could be helpful on an essay), fastest way to re learn everything, I did 1830s 40s and 50s last night, I thought I forgot everything, but after scrounging to come up with around 25 terms per decade (names places treaties etc), I found that by collecting these words, I was absorbing alot of the info. I feel I can now write a whole essay on one of those decades which are probably some of my weakest. Oh yea apparently all the AP people really read thoroughly is the introduction paragraph, and they just glance through the rest so I have been told to put most of the effort into the intro, include alot of details/outside info in bodies, and not to worry too much about the conclusion as a major paragraph, since it should be a quick one.
 
Goth_Catholic said:
Well the most stressful week and a half of my life (so far) Is about to begin. Friday I take the AP exam in History and next Wenesday for English (basically the tests are scored on a scale of 1-5, if I get a 5 I defiently get college credit in those courses, I might recieve some sort of credit for a four). I have a problem with panicing and forgeting everything!!! Especially because both these tests inculd timed essays. I’m scared to death, is what i’m basically saying, especially because getting a five would help lower the cost of tutition, and increase my chances for a scholarship. SO MUCH PRESSURE! I’m an A+ student in both classes, but that means nothing if i freeze.

Suggestions and prayers are deeply appreciated. I’m off to cram more US History into my brain.
Click to expand...
Don’t worry about it too much. In AP European history, there was a Free Response essay off of the actual exam that got a 6 out of 9 (they grade the FRQs this way) when its first paragraph went like this: Machiavelli wrote a book. Its name was the Prince. It was about politics…

You get the picture. The whole thing just went on like that. Basically, if you can get a 5 if you try. I’m not, so I’ll probably get a 4. I don’t want to kill myself over it, and I would. I function best when cramming. I know it’s not sane, but who am I to claim that I’m something I’m not?
 
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