3 Simple Steps to Prepare for AP US History Over the Summer

You’re taking AP United States History in the upcoming school year.

But…

• You’ve heard a lot of stressful stories about APUSH from upperclassmen
• Or, you’ve never taken an AP History class before and don’t know what to expect
• Or, you’ve taken an AP History class before and found it very time-consuming

As a result, you’ve decided to prepare for AP U.S. History over the summer.

The third bullet point was actually the reason I decided to get a head start on APUSH before the school year started. I knew my junior year would be loaded with other rigorous courses, extracurriculars, and college application prep.

In this article, I’ll be sharing the steps I followed to prepare for APUSH and save time during the school year.

But no matter your reasons for getting a head start on APUSH, this article will help you create a summer plan and enter the class running as well.

Brief Overview of APUSH

APUSH is Organized Into 9 Time Periods

The APUSH course is organized into 9 time periods, each of which contains its own set of key concepts. If you’re unfamiliar with key concepts, they’re essentially historical trends you should know about for a given time period.

The time period breakdown and related key concepts can be found in the College Board APUSH Course and Exam Description. I have also provided a broad overview of the time periods below.

Scanning over the time periods and key concepts is a great starting point for creating your prep plan.

APUSH Tests Your Historical Reasoning Skills

If you haven’t taken an AP History class before, then you may not be familiar with the core historical reasoning skills.

To succeed in APUSH, you cannot simply memorize events and dates. Instead, you must employ historical reasoning skills.

There are 9 historical reasoning skills, which I go into depth on in this guide to getting a 5 on APUSH. However, it all boils down to:

• Understanding how historical events relate to one another
• Making supportable claims about history
• And using historical evidence to support your claims

Therefore, as you prepare for AP U.S. History, don’t make the mistake of focusing on memorizing hard facts. Instead, start exercising your critical thinking skills by synthesizing and relating information.

APUSH Contains Stimulus-Based MC and Several Types of FRQs

If you haven’t taken an AP History course, you may be unfamiliar with how the exam is structured.

The multiple-choice questions are stimulus-based. This means that you’ll be provided with several excerpts from historical texts, each followed by several questions.

The FRQ section contains 3 short answer questions (SAQs), a document-based question (DBQ), and a long essay question (LEQ).

Therefore, it’s important to get used to reading and interpreting historical documents. However, you’ll get plenty of practice with this during the school year, so it’s not something I would stress about over the summer.

Is AP U.S. History hard to pass?

Since I saw this question floating around online, I wanted to offer my two cents on it.

AP U.S. History is a dense course that covers a LOT of material. Although it only covers the history of one country, it goes into significant detail on political, cultural, technological, and demographic trends and changes.

You’ll be expected to spend a significant amount of time reading and taking notes from a textbook. You’ll need to spend time memorizing the information.

In addition, you’ll need to understand the information well enough to build connections between different events.

I was super stressed when I took my first AP History class (AP World History). I didn’t know how to take notes or how to study. I felt overwhelmed by the huge amount of content.

However, by streamlining my note-taking and studying process, I found that AP History wasn’t as bad as I had originally found it to be. I developed a much better understanding of history while taking and studying notes with greater efficiency.

If you start preparing for AP U.S. History over the summer, you can also streamline your note-taking study routine before the school year starts.

In fact, I would say that that is the greatest benefit of preparing over the summer (in addition to getting a head start on course content). You don’t need to learn the entire curriculum or figure out how to approach every single FRQ. However, you can figure out an efficient routine that works for you.

Important Note: If APUSH is your first AP History class, remember not to get bogged down by small details! This was a mistake I made when I took my first AP History class. However, the course tests your understanding of historical trends and connections between events. Although details are important, you should never lose sight of the bigger picture.

This is what happens when you get lost in the small details and fail to see the bigger picture…

Okay, now let’s move to how you can prepare for APUSH over the summer…

Step 1: Determine Your Summer Goals

Before you create a plan, determine what you want to achieve by preparing for APUSH over the summer.

Do you want to start learning material so that you’re familiar with the content?

Do you want to start note-taking to save time during the school year?

Do you want to improve your writing and critical thinking skills?

Once you’ve identified what you want to achieve over the summer, you can move on to the next step.

Step 2: Create a Plan

Creating a plan with tasks and deadlines is essential because setting artificial deadlines will motivate you to work.

No matter your goal, however, I suggest first looking at the key concepts in the APUSH Course and Exam Description. That way, you can get a broad overview of what the course covers.

Additionally, I suggest looking at the FRQ types, especially if you’re unfamiliar with SAQs, DBQs, and LEQs.

Goal #1: You Want to Get Familiar With the Material

If your goal is to get familiar with the material, so that you’re not inundated with a huge load of content during the year, I suggest watching YouTube lectures.

If your goal is to get familiar with the material, so that you’re not inundated with a huge load of content during the year, I suggest watching YouTube lectures.

There are many great channels to choose from. Although I’ve never watched his videos, I’ve seen many students mention Adam Norris in online forums.

Personally, I watched videos from Mr. Loscos, since my school used the American Pageant book, and he has videos directly on it.

Depending on how many videos you want to watch in advance, you can set a goal for yourself like “complete 2 videos a week”.

While watching the videos, make sure to take notes. They don’t have to be super detailed, but if you don’t take notes, you’ll likely forget everything you learn (this is due to the forgetting curve phenomenon).

Plus, you can refer to your notes at any time during the school year. For example, before your teacher starts a new unit, you can quickly scan over your notes to remind yourself what the unit is about.

Summarize and Make Connections!

Additionally, I suggest writing a summary after each video. It can be just a few sentences, and I strongly suggest that you do this without referring to the notes you wrote.

This is a form of active recall, which improves retention of information.

If you want to challenge yourself further, I suggest writing additional summaries (on top of video-specific summaries) of any connections you noticed between events from different videos. This pushes you to develop historical reasoning skills essential for succeeding in APUSH.

For example, you could talk about cause and effect, continuity and change, turning points, and any other connections you noticed.

Goal #2: You Want to Save Time On Note-Taking

If you know reading and taking notes from the textbook will be counted as a grade, you may want to get started on note-taking.

In this case, I suggest asking upperclassmen (or any other students who’ve already taken APUSH) about the expected note-taking structure and the course textbook.

You need to ask about the note-taking structure because some teachers require a specific format, like Cornell notes.

You also need to ask about the course textbook because there are a LOT of APUSH textbooks, and it’s important to know which one you should be using.

To create a plan for note-taking, I suggest setting deadlines for when you want to complete certain chapters or subsections by. (If you know planning by chapter is too overwhelming, you may want to divide chapters into subsections.)

The deadlines should depend on how many chapters you want to cover over the summer and realistically, how much time you have.

This was the route I decided to take. However, I didn’t pressurize myself into taking notes on the entire textbook.

I got started on a few chapters, which helped me get into the rhythm of note-taking. I became familiar with the structure and writing style of the textbook. In doing so, I was able to figure out an efficient note-taking routine.

Plus, getting a head start on note-taking helped me save time during the school year!

Summarize and Make Connections! 

As I mentioned earlier, summarizing and making connections are crucial to understanding the information.

Otherwise, history will seem like a bunch of random events strung together (trust me, I’ve made this mistake before).

As you’re taking notes, take time to summarize the main concepts from each chapter. Once you’re a few chapters in, think about the connections between events from different chapters (e.g., cause and effect, continuity and change, turning points).

It’s never too early to start building your historical reasoning skills.

Goal #3: You Want to Improve Your Writing Skills 

If you feel daunted by the FRQ section because you’ve never taken an AP History class before, you may want to get familiar with the FRQ types.

If this is the case, I suggest watching FRQ videos from Heimler’s History. He explains how to structure different FRQ types concisely and provides concrete examples. I’ve personally found his videos to be very helpful.

However, watching videos alone won’t help you improve your writing skills. You must put what you’ve learned into practice.

Therefore, I suggest looking at past APUSH exam FRQs as you learn APUSH content.

After finishing videos for Period 1 key concepts, for example, you could take a look at a past FRQ that deals with Period 1. You don’t need to write a full-blown essay, but you can try outlining an essay based on Heimler’s suggestions.

(Remember, don’t outline based on how you think an essay should be structured. The graders are very specific about what they’re looking for!)

If you want, you can also read the grading rubric and sample student responses.

Track Your Progress

If you want to improve your writing, it’s important to track your progress.

For example, you could challenge yourself to write one thesis for every period that you go over. The thesis doesn’t even need to be based on a real prompt.

In fact, when I took the class, my APUSH teacher would have us write one thesis statement for each APUSH theme after finishing a unit (no prompts used). I have listed the themes below, although I never thought about categorizing information into the themes while studying (I don’t believe it’s necessary).

• American & National Identity (NAT)
• Politics & Power (POL)
• Work, Exchange, & Technology (WXT)
• Culture & Society (CUL)
• Migration & Settlement (MIG)
• Geography & the Environment (GEO)
• America in the World (WOR)

Just writing thesis statements is a good way to start developing your historical reasoning skills.

You should save all your thesis statements in one location, so that as you write them, you can track your improvement.

As you get better, you can even set a time limit for how long it takes you to write a thesis statement. This can help you get up to speed for the actual time limits of the exam.

Find a Routine That Works For You 

Like I said in the “Is AP U.S. History hard to pass?” section, one of the greatest benefits I reaped from starting over the summer was finding a routine that worked for me.

I experimented with different note-taking structures and strategies.

I tried reading the textbook in different ways (sometimes, I would start note-taking after one section, and other times, I wouldn’t start until I had finished half the chapter).

I watched different YouTube channels to supplement my learning. As a result, I was able to figure out which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t.

By doing all this, I was able to avoid the beginning-of-the-year stress of entering a new class.

Especially if you’ve never taken AP History before, I highly suggest experimenting with different note-taking and study strategies.

History can seem overwhelming at first. However, if you find resources and strategies that help you process and synthesize information efficiently, then you’re already on your way to succeeding in the course.

Finally, Don’t Give Yourself Too Much Pressure! 

Lastly, I would like to provide a reminder that you shouldn’t lose your summer break to APUSH prep.

While preparing for APUSH early has its benefits, remember that you have an entire school year ahead of you to learn the material.

If you know your junior year will be packed with activities and other rigorous courses (like I did), it’s a great idea to get a head start.

However, you shouldn’t set extremely rigid goals for yourself like reading the entire textbook, watching all the key concept review videos, or mastering the three FRQ types.

Doing these things will alleviate the stress and workload of the course during the school year. But, you do NOT need to master the entire course in 3 months.

Main Takeaways On Preparing for AP U.S. History Over the Summer

There are many benefits of preparing for AP U.S. History over the summer, several of which I’ve listed below:

• You can find an efficient note-taking and study routine that works for you.
• You can start developing essential historical reasoning skills.
• You can get familiar with the course content and exam structure.
• You can work on possible weaknesses, like essay writing and critical analysis skills.
• You can save time on note-taking during the school year.

However, before you get started, it’s important to identify your goals in preparing over the summer. Is it to get familiar with the course content? Is it to save time on note-taking? Is it to improve your writing skills?

Or, perhaps you have another goal in mind. No matter your situation, it’s important that you determine the answer to, “What do I want to achieve by preparing over the summer?”

Once you’ve answered this question, you can create a plan to achieve your goal(s).

As you prepare for AP U.S. History over the summer, remember to be flexible and experiment with different note-taking and study strategies. This can help you streamline your approach to the class even before the school year starts!

And lastly, remember that you shouldn’t set overly rigid or time-consuming goals for yourself. While getting a head start is fantastic, you shouldn’t lose your summer break to APUSH prep.

Make sure to check out these other posts to help you succeed in APUSH:

• The Ultimate Guide to Get a 5 on APUSH
• DBQ Thesis Formula (With AP World and APUSH Thesis Examples!)
• How to Take APUSH Notes—Improve Speed, Memory, and Grades

Do you plan on preparing for APUSH before school starts? If so, let me know which goals you want to achieve in the comments below!