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Are you thinking of taking an AP course?

If you are, I applaud your ambition! An AP course provides an excellent opportunity to delve deeply into a particular subject matter – and even if you don’t pass the May exam, you will still learn valuable skills that will help you in college and beyond.

However, a decision like this shouldn’t be made lightly. In my four-plus years of tutoring students in AP history, English, calculus, statistics and science, I have seen many flame out and give up. Thus, as students across the nation begin to put together their schedules for the 2010-2011 academic year, I would like to share with you my top four AP prerequisites – the five qualities I believe every AP student should possess:

You should like to read. Unless you’re taking a pure math class, you will be expected to spend many hours per week reading – and this reading will not be limited to official assignments. In order to do well on a history, geography, or English exam especially, you must go beyond your instructor’s expectations and seek out materials on your own, as the essays on these exams require you to cite examples that your class may not have time to cover.
You should be comfortable constructing a well-reasoned essay. Every AP class save calculus will ask you to write answers of at least paragraph length to more in-depth questions – and the writing requirement is even more extensive for history and English.
You should have a B average – at least. In my experience, there are very few exceptions to this rule. Why? Because maintaining at least a 3.0 across the board indicates that you take school seriously, that you are a self-starter, and, hopefully, that you have sufficient background knowledge to understand the texts you will be given.
You should love the subject! This prerequisite may be the most important one of all. Even if you are an excellent student and a frequent reader, you are less likely to do well in an AP class if you don’t have the passion. Don’t allow the adults in your life to push you into something that will only be an unwelcome burden for you. If you don’t like history, don’t take AP U.S. History just because it is expected of you; if you don’t like science, don’t take AP Biology. Taking a class simply to pad a college resume is taking a class for all the wrong reasons.

If the four requirements above apply to you, then by all means, sign up for that AP course! I think you will find such a class a rewarding experience.

AP Students – NOW is the time to start studying!

It’s the new year. We’ve all been well stuffed with holiday meats and sweets and have (hopefully) enjoyed our visits with extended family members. But now the vacation is over; it is time to get down to business.

If there is one thing that has always worried me about many of my AP students, it’s their tendency to procrastinate. In previous years, I’ve noticed a definite spike in our center’s enrollment come late March. Formerly nonchalant students see early May bearing down on them like a freight train and suddenly feel the need to seek out assistance with the mounds of difficult AP vocabulary or the concepts they never mastered the first time through. But the month of April is not the time to get serious! Studying for the AP exam in any subject should, ideally, be a year-long process.

If you haven’t started studying for the AP exam by this point, you need to start now. The following are some of the things you need to do before February rolls around:

* Buy a review book. In my experience, Barron’s has the most challenging, highest quality sample questions, but REA and Kaplan are also excellent sources.

* Get organized. Collect all of your old tests, notes, and vocabulary worksheets and sort them by topic.

* Make flashcards for all key terms. This is especially important in history, geography, English, and biology, courses that are heavily dependent upon knowing the terminology.

* Start looking at sample questions from previous years. You can find sample questions at the College Board site here.

* Find someone to study with. This can be either a tutor such as myself or a peer. Getting feedback from someone else is crucial to the process of studying.

Again: the earlier you start taking the May exams seriously, the better off you will be!