Ten things to do for APs

-Katie Meisel

1. Start studying sooner rather than later. In this case, “sooner” does not mean a week before, it means at least a month.
2. Pay attention to reviews in class. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t bother.
3. Get organized. Recycle all the papers you aren’t going to need for studying and put your notes in order so that when you do start studying, you aren’t rummaging through mountains of paper to find the one sheet you need.
4. If you took the course fall semester, make time to attend any reviews teachers hold during lunches, before or after school or on weekends. It’s not as much fun as sleeping in or playing video games, but it’s much more helpful.
5. Beware of study groups. As fun as it is to hang out with your friends at Barnes and Noble for a few hours, make sure there’s at least as much studying as goofing-off happening. It tends to be especially hard to focus in large groups.
6. Don’t stay up all night before the test. At that point, anything you don’t know you probably aren’t going to learn. Instead of stressing and cramming, relax, maybe glance over a few notes or formulas and get some sleep.
7. Don’t change up your snoozing schedule too much. If seven hours is normally enough for you, don’t go sleeping 10. Too much sleep can mess up your internal clock as much as not enough.
8. Get a good night’s sleep the night before the night before. How your night goes two nights before a big event can be as or more important as the night before.
9. Eat breakfast. Preferably something with a good mix of protein, carbs and natural sugars. If you can’t do that, at least something that won’t leave you starved halfway through (avoid Poptarts, Cap’n Crunch, etc). Also, avoid large amounts of caffeine, because there’s nothing like an overly full bladder to distract you from an essay.
10. Bring plenty of pencils and pens, extra lead and erasers and your own calculator with fresh batteries. A watch is great to have, but not one that will beep – you never know when the smallest thing might make push that overstressed kid next to you over the edge.