Studying terms can be hard because we don't always know what we need to study and how to go about it. Questions like: Do I use my notebook or not? or Is studying with friends easier? tend to circulate. It is all about trial and error.
Some good ideas that I saw or did myself was:
~The Flashcard Method: Whether you make flashcards on quizlet.com or you have note cards, writing or typing the information not only helps your mind to remember the facts but now you have a quick and easy study method. This can be done by having cards that have bullet points of info of the whole term, or it can be done by having Roger Williams (what), Roger Williams (who), Roger Williams (why), etc.
~The Word Vomit Method: This is what I called the process where someone would shout out a term to you, like John Winthrop, and you would say everything that comes to mind. "A Model of Christian Charity". City Upon a Hill. MA Bay. Governor. Early 1600s. Wanted England to see them as superior and change their ways. Puritan. Etc. I found this helpful when I wanted to strengthen what I knew and this helped in the what portion mainly. This is also helpful because there are friends around you to maybe question what you said, give you more information, and to help you make connections to how to remember this.
~The Connection Method: Confusing to others yet helpful for the individual, this is a method that one of my friends is very fond of when trying to remember the whys to the terms. She would take a term, like Manifest Destiny. Then she would look at the why's: led to Western Expansion and led to conflicts with Indians/Mexicans. Then she would connect them by saying things like "In Manifest, the M is the Mexicans, the i is the Indians and the a is the Americans. The m and the i are trying to squeeze together to push out the a." This therefore allowed her to conclude that the a or the Americans were causing conflicts with the m and the i (or the Mexicans and the Indians). Crazy, I know, but makes sense when you do it yourself. This way, when you write the term at the top of the paper, these kinds of things pop out at you and bada bing bada boom, you have 4 points down right there.
~The Hardcore Memorization: I liked doing this when I was cramming for a term on the bus. Most people have realized that if you know the why, the rest of the elements can fall in place (most of the time). The night before, I would write down on a sheet of paper "The Alamo: rally call for Texans to win San Cincto , provide anger and racism towards Texans (next line) Manifest Destiny: led to Western Expansion, led to conflicts with Indians/Mexicans (next line) Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Gives us land, cause conflict, more sectionalism, leads to the Civil War (next line) etc." Then I would fold up the bottom, quickly read the first term and recite (aloud or whispering) what the why's were. If I got one wrong or it wasn't exactly right, I'd start all over again from the top. This helped for me greatly when it came to the day before the test (because you could only study the exact why's the day before).
~The Erase-and-Repeat Method: This is one of the more creative ideas that I saw out there so far. My friend Amanda came up with it. She created a document that allowed you to be able to write up a term without taking up so much paper. She created this document so that one could put it into a protective cover or tape a piece of plastic over it. This allows someone to be able to use an EXPO marker to write up a term into the lines and they could use that same sheet all throughout the year! Very creative and simple!
AP US History Term Review (Amanda) |
~The Additional Resource Method: For those people who are more visual learners (or who can recite Harry Potter in 99 seconds or After Ever After 1 and 2 after 3 days...) this method is all about looking up videos on Youtube! Mr. J showed us a video on the XYZ Affair and it was a corny song but it was funny and catchy to me. I ended up being able to know the XYZ Affair like the back of my hand (there is a link at the end of the Helpful Links page to this video as well). Sadly, I didn't get it as a term *tear* but I did feel so confident in that one, more than any other term I did. I know someone who can listen to videos from people like Keith Hughes, HistoryChannel or John Green's CrashCourse and they are set for the life! She was basically the only person that asked Mr. Johnston for extra sheets of paper to write her term on (pfft...tryhard much =) lol)!! Anyways, for those of you that can't look at a textbook or your notes, this is a great thing to try out!
These are just some methods I saw floating around (and gave weird names to). The most common one was the Word Vomit Method because you were basically reciting your term to friends and everyone could pitch in on it. If you have any other methods that worked best for you, please comment below, because after all, we are (or were) all suffering through this together. Good Luck!!!