If you go to Harding Charter Prep you have most likely heard something along the lines of, "AP Euro is the hardest class you will ever take, but it will help you in the future when you go to college."  But, if you are like the majority of students, you have trouble keeping up with the daily reading, notes, lectures, quizzes, FRQs, DBQs and document notes. This is a guide to learn how to survive Euro.

Why you hate it:

To begin, European History is an AP (Advanced Placement) class, which means it is going to be hard no matter what. The focus is to prepare the students for the extremely detailed and lengthy AP Exam at the end of the year. Europe is a very old continent containing many countries, dating back thousands of years. Going through all that history in less than one year can be stressful, time-consuming work. However, following some simple tips and rules can help to relieve some of the pressure from this overbearing work load.

The nightly battles and daily horrors:

Yes, the online summaries do exist, even Satwalekar himself admits it. These summaries can help you on the daily quizzes if you fell behind on the reading. However, relying solely on the summaries won’t always guarantee you a 10. Satwalekar has a habit of asking questions from the "brown pages" (the pages everyone skips over), which the summaries don’t always cover. Satwalekar warns that using these summaries will deprive you from the detail you will need to know for the AP Exam, so avoiding them is your best bet. Satwalekar is also always sure to change the reading quiz questions throughout the day, so getting answers from peers isn’t always a good idea. The only way you can guarantee to ace the quizzes is to read the night before, and take notes to review right before the quiz.

The colored paper with the questions that you forgot about until Sunday night:

Reading notes, the Euro book, and Google are your friends. Googling the question might bring you across an AP Central link, if Satwalekar chose to reuse a question from the real AP exam. This website will give you a very detailed analysis on the question, and sometimes a sample essay. However, it is possible to do thorough outlines using only the Euro book. It has all the information for the questions; you just have to know where to look. Simplify the question to its very basic topic, and look that up in the index.

The essay that you “don’t” have to study for:

The most important things about the DBQs is planning and timing. The key is to pace yourself. Spend 15 minutes on planning with the chart and outline, then the remaining 45 minutes on the essay. Without using the majority of the documents (half plus one), you can’t hope to get a score above a two. To get to the next level, utilize point-of-view for at least three documents by discussing the source and its motives.

The Bottom Line:

There are three right ways to actually survive AP European History – do the nightly reading, take notes, and study, study study!