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Rating: 
Summary: A test prep that is great for what it does not contain!!!
Review: AP Success World History contains a great deal of pertinent information regarding the three topics that the College Board emphasizes. Instead of helping me learn hundreds of useless facts, the book aided me by clearly explaining the main topics included on the AP exam, topics including, but not limited to, "how cultures change over time" and "how cultures interact with one another." Once again, as most of the AP World History Exam deals with general trends and not specific facts, AP Success: World History is the right choice for preparation; and since it is not a very long book, last minute studying is more plausible with this book than perhaps any other. I should also point out here that taking the practice tests and STUDYING the SOLUTIONS for the tests is critical to success. By quickly reviewing the book and taking and STUDYING the practice test questions and SOLUTIONS, confidently earned a 4 on the actual AP EXAM with only 2 night's worth of study (90 mintutes of study on night 1 and 3 hours of study on night 2).If you seriously want to do well on this examination and you have had little, poor quality, or no preparation for AP World History, then buying this book and using it will give you a very good chance of getting a 4. If you want a 5 you might need a little more preparation. Getting a 3 should be no problem.
Rating:
Summary: A test prep that is great for what it does not contain!!!
Review: AP Success World History contains a great deal of pertinent information regarding the three topics that the College Board emphasizes. Instead of helping me learn hundreds of useless facts, the book aided me by clearly explaining the main topics included on the AP exam, topics including, but not limited to, "how cultures change over time" and "how cultures interact with one another." Once again, as most of the AP World History Exam deals with general trends and not specific facts, AP Success: World History is the right choice for preparation; and since it is not a very long book, last minute studying is more plausible with this book than perhaps any other. I should also point out here that taking the practice tests and STUDYING the SOLUTIONS for the tests is critical to success. By quickly reviewing the book and taking and STUDYING the practice test questions and SOLUTIONS, confidently earned a 4 on the actual AP EXAM with only 2 night's worth of study (90 mintutes of study on night 1 and 3 hours of study on night 2). If you seriously want to do well on this examination and you have had little, poor quality, or no preparation for AP World History, then buying this book and using it will give you a very good chance of getting a 4. If you want a 5 you might need a little more preparation. Getting a 3 should be no problem.
Rating: 
Summary: First Study Guide for AP World History!
Review: The first AP World History exam will be given in 2002, and this Peterson volume is the first study guide to become available. Whatever its flaws, it will be welcomed by many teachers and students who are pioneering this new AP course in its first year. What follows is a first impression by an AP World History teacher who occasionally moonlights as a College Board Consultant for AP World History. Like other Peterson guides, this one begins with a diagnostic test, and the remainder of the book follows the typical pattern for AP study guides: a first half on test taking strategies (Chapters 1-5), and a second half on content review (Chapters 6-10). As a teacher, what I liked most about the study guide were the practice tests and the tables that organized and summarized content. What I liked least were the chapters on test-taking strategies, which seemed to lack the sophistication needed for students to excel on the written portions of the test. However, to be fair, 'your mileage may vary' depending on your grade level and level of AP experience. If you are a high school sophomore - as many students taking this course are - and you have very little or no experience taking AP exams, the study guide is very accessible and covers the basics in a simple, straightforward way. On the other hand, if you are a senior with lots of AP experience and are hoping to score a 5, I suspect you're going to be disappointed - but you should still find the practice tests moderately useful. The study guide provides students with a course outline straight from what teachers recognize as 'the Acorn book,' and it obviously relies heavily on this source as a guide to the information it covers. Practice essays and DBQ topics are taken directly, if not stolen outright, from the Acorn book, and they are accompanied by rubrics that consist of elaborate (brainstorming) lists and tables. Oddly, the study guide does not provide students with a detailed explanation of the rubric that AP readers use in evaluating essays, i.e., what is specifically required for an outstanding essay. Nor do the DBQ chapter or rubrics adequately address issues of context, frame of reference, and perspective, i.e., 'Habits of Mind.' Teachers and students should be advised that they may find a few of the multiple choice test questions and answers problematic (but what else is new?). The authors have also not quite mastered the technique of providing options within their essay questions, and they appear to prefer to use a minimum number of moderately long documents rather than a maximum number of short documents for their DBQs. Overall though, I consider the practice tests to be the most valuable part of the study guide. The multiple choice practice exams are not nearly as obsessive about factual details as most of the textbook-based exams that many teachers are using in their classes. Of course, we can only hope that the authors guessed right about the level of difficulty of the AP exam. (I suspect the practice tests are a bit too easy.) We won't really know until May. (By the way, the study guide is 350 pages, not 500.)
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