AP Euro: 10/10 Would Recommend

1. AP Euro was a really great experience and I am very glad that I took this class. I love learning history, so I was very excited to take a class that focused on a history subject I had not really learned before. I really liked how Mrs. Salisbury focused our time in class towards reiterating the big ideas learned in the readings. The activities and the assignments that we did really cemented the important concepts in my mind, and these were more than just people, dates, and events. AP Euro focuses on the how and why of history, not just the who, what, where, and when. I really appreciated how Mrs. Salisbury would let us correct our reading checks to improve our grades because usually those corrections were extremely necessary! While my grade in the class benefited from those corrections, so did my knowledge of the subject because I was able to go over what I got wrong, see why it was wrong, and then realize why the right answer is the right answer.

2. There was nothing that I really disliked about the class as I felt as if everything we did was not just busywork, but rather something that would help us to understand a concept. In general, I do not like summer work or work over any school vacation, but besides the summer work there was not homework over any break that could not have been done on the Monday night we returned to school, thank goodness.

3. My suggestions to improve the class would be to practice writing LEQs and DBQs more often, or at least spending time on grouping documents together or trying to come up with sufficient evidence for LEQs. We practiced multiple choice a lot, but it also could have been beneficial if we did a guided analysis of documents, at least in the beginning of the year, to help us to be able to gather the important information from primary sources.

AP Euro Survival Tips:

1. Invest in a guide book- I recommend buying one of these for every AP that you take! I personally prefer Barron's, but other brands exist. These books go over the major developments and events that occurred throughout European history and include practice tests! There are multiple choice and SAQs at the end of each section to make sure that you can recall the important information and connect it to primary and secondary sources. I suggest that after you finish reading a chapter of the textbook, go over the corresponding section in the guide book to make sure that you did not miss anything.
2. Manage your time wisely- You will probably see this a lot in these survival tips because it is really important! you will receive a calendar every month that has all of the assignments and activities for that month. You may have a reading check due Monday, a Napoleon webquest due Wednesday, then a blog post due Friday. It is up to you how you choose to manage your time and finish these assignments on time. Break readings into chunks and spread it out over a few days as you may have around 30 pages to be responsible for per reading check.
3. Some advice on reading- You learn the Euro content through independent reading at home. I recommend that before you start reading the 30-40 page chapter, copy the timeline at the start of the chapter and the flip through and copy down all the vocab and the definitions. This helps narrow down the most important parts of the chapter. Focus more on reading, then take notes on the main idea of each paragraph- don't focus on the specifics. When you finish reading and taking notes on the chapter, go through the guide book section and see what you missed!
4. Stay calm! AP Euro is a great class and Mrs. Salisbury is an amazing teacher. You may not do great on every reading check or assignment and that's okay! You can learn from the mistakes you make on the quizzes and can use that to see what you need to study before the exam in May. You are usually allowed to correct your quizzes and you receive a lot of points back for this, so take advantage of it! Also, don't stress out when you have a ton of assignments to do for Euro and then for other classes. Just take a deep breath and get cracking.

Have an awesome year! You'll do great in AP Euro!