3.86

3

Nov 28, 2016

Although I am not an AP student, I read eight different books about European History for the sake of learning about it. They were as follows: AP European History Crash Course Book + Online (Advanced Placement (AP) Crash Course), The Complete Idiot's Guide to European History, 2e, Cracking the AP European History Exam, 2009 Edition (College Test Preparation), CliffsNotes AP European History, 2nd Edition (Cliffs AP), Kaplan AP European History 2013-2014 (Kaplan AP Series), Barron's AP European Although I am not an AP student, I read eight different books about European History for the sake of learning about it. They were as follows: AP European History Crash Course Book + Online (Advanced Placement (AP) Crash Course), The Complete Idiot's Guide to European History, 2e, Cracking the AP European History Exam, 2009 Edition (College Test Preparation), CliffsNotes AP European History, 2nd Edition (Cliffs AP), Kaplan AP European History 2013-2014 (Kaplan AP Series), Barron's AP European History, 6th Edition, AP - European History, 2nd ed (Peterson's AP European History), and 5 Steps to a 5 AP European History, 2012-2013 Edition (5 Steps to a 5 on the Advanced Placement Examinations Series). Because I usually read literature that takes place from 15th to 19th centuries, the political and religious climates were unfamiliar to me. I found myself illuminated during my education of European History through the eight books.

Now, my understanding of political and religious climates is much greater than ever before. With the exception of AP European History Crash Course Book, all of the main AP books are more or less the same, and not a single book is superior to the others. Truth be told, I find the text on them to be bogged down with so much information, so it can get pretty boring. Hence, AP European History Crash Course Book is the best book of any because it excises the fat, keeps the information organized, and is filled with many tips from an experienced AP Euro reader.

On the other hand, although the goal of the books is to prepare the students for the AP examination, I feel many of the questions in the main books to be inordinately difficult and mostly nitpicking. They are more geared towards to graduate level students. I just cannot believe that high school students have to be subjected to these type of questions. Some of them aren't covered in the texts, and some of the other questions are just plain minutiae. Taking the practice tests, I usually scored between 50 and 60 with several 60s out of 80. From what I understand in the explanation of the scoring system, it is good enough for a 5 provided that I do reasonably well on the essays. I guess so because achieving a low score like that doesn't really boost confidence in terms of knowing European History well enough.

The test-taking strategies proffered by all of the seven main books aren't much of help because the test-taker's success on the examination boils down to two necessities: the knowledge and memorization of European History and the writing skill. The former is achieved by reading and retaining as much of the information as possible, and the latter is achieved by writing as much as possible. So, you are better off getting the AP European History Crash Course Book.

A negative aspect about the main books is the lack of a chapter or any pre-test analysis of quotes and pictures. That's why I was never able to do well in the questions. Thanks for the lack of preparation, guys! Finally, I compared the older versions with the newer versions of the same book. Guess what? None of the information has changed, only that the cover is different. Therefore, you are wasting your money on the newest version possible and should get an older one for lesser price. Better yet, go to the library and borrow the books for free. All in all, I actually enjoyed reading about the history of Europe, but the main books didn't help very much about getting at least 80% of the questions correctly yet I still got a 5 regardless; what a joke. So, you are better off working with AP European History Crash Course Book if there is only one book you just need. ...more

4

May 09, 2012

Very good. I feel prepared witha ll this Princeton Review insight.

3

Jun 29, 2012

Prepared me very well for my exam; I used little else and scored a 5.