2021 Live Review 8 | AP World History | Test-taking Strategies for the Exam

Mason Lozero introduces the final AP World History live session, representing Flugerville High School. He humorously mentions avoiding playing 'End of the Road' by Boyz II Men to sidestep royalty fees and age revelation. The session aims to offer last-minute multiple-choice tips, essay setup advice, and rubric reminders. Lozero highlights a tweet from Trevor Packer, a College Board executive, emphasizing big-picture understanding in world history, cautioning against getting lost in minor details, and advising on the careful selection of study resources.

The discussion transitions into strategies for tackling multiple-choice questions, emphasizing understanding the stimulus's context, like the Atlantic slave trade example. Lozero advises identifying weak answers first to improve the chances of selecting the correct one, demonstrating this with an example question about African society's impact due to the slave trade. The approach combines logical reasoning with historical knowledge, stressing the importance of eliminating incorrect answers to make educated guesses.

Lozero explains the essay component, comparing Document-Based Questions (DBQs) and Long Essay Questions (LEQs) while emphasizing their rubric similarities. He discusses the significance of contextualization in essays, illustrating with examples how to set the stage for the essay's argument. He suggests choosing contexts that directly impact the essay's topic and argument, using potential contextualization topics for an essay on state roles in economies post-1900 as examples.

Lozero provides insights into the use of documents in DBQ essays, advising students to use all available documents to support their thesis and include document numbers for clarity. He stresses the importance of organizing essays by claims and being specific in arguments. Additionally, he touches on the historical reasoning aspect of LEQs, explaining how to extend evidence analysis beyond mere description, using historical reasoning techniques like continuity and change, or cause and effect.

Lozero discusses advanced techniques for document analysis in DBQs, emphasizing the need to understand the documents deeply and contextually, rather than taking them at face value. He illustrates this with a Marvel movie analogy, explaining the significance of Captain America wielding Thor's hammer in 'Endgame' to emphasize the importance of deeper analysis in understanding historical documents' significance and implications.

Sherry takes over to discuss student responses to homework involving document sourcing for DBQs, highlighting examples that showcase the correct approach to sourcing by explaining the document's historical situation, purpose, and audience. She points out common pitfalls and emphasizes the necessity of connecting the document's content to the essay's argument, aiming for a comprehensive understanding of the document's significance in its historical context.

Sherry discusses thesis statements, highlighting student examples that effectively respond to prompts and showcase a historically defensible claim. She stresses the importance of placing the thesis in the introduction or conclusion of essays and encourages aiming for complexity in arguments to demonstrate nuanced understanding and analytical depth in essay responses.

The video concludes with Sherry encouraging students to aim for complexity in their AP history essays, likening it to aiming for a home run in baseball. She explains various ways to achieve complexity, such as analyzing nuances, recognizing both similarities and differences, and making insightful connections across time periods. The goal is to encourage students to not only aim for but exceed the basic requirements of the rubric, enhancing their analytical skills in historical writing.