This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌 Overview

• Students are given 100 multiple choice questions and are asked to define a range of psychology content/vocabulary and use course skills to analyze situations
• 67% of Exam Score
• Spend less than 1 min per question → only 70 minutes given!

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💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• 2-3 months in advance, try to create a study schedule for the exam. This can help you plan out what unit you want to work on each week and when to take practice tests so that you’re maximizing your time before the exam without getting stressed out closer to the day.

• Try to incorporate 2-3 hours per week to study for the exam approximately a month prior to the exam.

• Space it out your studying, you can cover each chapter individually & create/write it on one page for each chapter with notes on the most important concepts from that chapter.

• Use your senses to help you:

  • Draw what you are learning or reviewing since that will help you associate the words with the images.
  • Use different color pens for notes.
  • Read your notes out loud and repeat them a few times.

  Combining visual and auditory representation of your notes will increase your understanding of the subject.

• Make flashcards to study vocab as AP Psychology is a very vocab-heavy course. Try writing the flashcards in your own words, so you’re more likely to remember them. If you can define vocab words in 5 words or less.

• If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s okay!! Just put a star by it and come back to it later. On an AP exam like Psychology with 70 questions in 100 minutes, the worst mistake you can make is getting tripped up on one question since the time is so limited. If there’s time at the end go back, but if you’re in doubt and think you’re taking too long on a question, just keep moving forward.

• Use what you learned in psych to help you study: If you use flashcards, make sure to mix them up so you can learn the ones in the middle better (the first and last entities in a group are often remembered).

  • Remember Unit 5 on Cognitive Psychology? Try applying techniques like deep processing, mnemonics, and chunking to help your memory. Likewise, avoid dividing your attention among other tasks and stimuli while studying for the exam. Practice how you’ll perform. You won’t have background music or the TV playing in the background on test day, so it’s best to practice in an environment as similar to the exam room as possible.

• Make connections between different areas of psychology and the world.

  • When you are reading a textbook or the Fiveable review guides, or reviewing any form of material, look for things that remind you of different psychology concepts and things from your own life. (jot them down if it helps)

• If you studied and have mastered the content, and you do good on practice exams then your score will reflect that. When you take the exam don’t stress because you know you put the work in!

• Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Group together concepts under one general theme. This helps recall information faster when taking the exam. If you see a question about Wilhem Wundt, well then you know you’re being tested on Historical Approaches/Figures in Psych. If you get a question about absolute threshold, you know you’re being tested on Sensation & Perception and your brain can quickly focus on that area and pull out information you need!

• Don’t cram the night before the test. It won’t help you. The night before the test is your time to relax, get rid of stress, eat, and prepare.

• Make sure to be well-rested on the day of the exam so you will have the energy to do well. Make sure to eat too, being hungry while trying to concentrate doesn’t help.

• It’s okay to not know everything! AP Psych is A LOT of content! So know your percentages, and what topics are going to appear more frequently than others on the AP Exam. This helps you prioritize your studying!

• PRACTICE TESTS! These are such a good way to study for AP Psych! Take tests that are similar in nature to the style of questions you will see on the AP Exam.

• Be resilient! Even though a question or a series of questions might seem difficult, don’t give up! The AP Psych Exam is not progressive, meaning that the questions go from easy to hard. It’s a mix. You might find it difficult at the beginning but there could be easy questions at the end.

• Time yourself! You get a limited time on the MCQ so it’s better to practice prior to the exam how you should budget your time rather than be surprised and in a rush during the AP Exam.

• Understand WHY you got questions wrong when taking practice tests. Where is your weakness? What is confusing you? Pin that down and focus on improving that weakness.

• Don’t rely only on your teacher, make time after school to review what you learned that day, or what you may do soon.

• Don’t procrastinate; work hard since in the end it will pay off.

• It’s okay to make mistakes and to do bad while practicing; better now than on the actual exam.

• Try to see the bigger picture when reviewing: after learning all units, you can use information from previous units to understand the material more (semantic encoding).

• Don’t be too nervous, trust that you will do well no matter what (self-fulfilling prophecy)!

• Take breaks in your studying, and be sure to reward yourself for your hard work! Preparing for exams can be like a marathon, so it’s important to commemorate the small milestones toward your success to avoid burnout and because your hard work deserves to be celebrated!

• Teach the AP psychology curriculum to your friends. This should be able to recall terms, theories, and psychologists, deepening your understanding in regards to the material taught.

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🤔 Before you Bubble

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start answering?

• Underline any key words that immediately pop out to you & think of a short definition.
• Circle words or phrases that you do not know, and try to find context clues based on what you do know.
• Read the question. Once you have understood the question, make sure to have the answer that you believe to be right in your head. Afterwards, try to find the multiple choice that is closest to the answer in your head.
• Read every answer choice!! Look at the wording and any differences in the answer choices. Even if you think A is the right answer, there might be a better answer choice further down.
• While reading the question, try to use bottom up processing to narrow down to the unit/topic that it is testing so you’ll only look for terms relating to that unit/topic.
• The exam will try to trick you with specific wording choices (similar concepts, extreme words) so make sure to real carefully and avoid traps.
• Try to simplify the question so that you don’t get distracted by other information that will not help you get the right answer. Focus on what they ask for.

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✏️ Choosing the Best Answer

• Make sure to read all of the answer choices, and underline key words.
• Sometimes your better option is to eliminate the wrong answer choices, instead of immediately going for the correct one.
• The question style and wording really matters on the AP Psychology Exam. Make sure to pay attention to keywords, where they are placed, and what they may imply.
• Go through the notes you made on the question and choose the best answer. Psych MCQ can get tricky when you have to reason between similar theories so try your best to answer the question you’re being asked.
• In a question, they might create a scenario that is different from what you usually associate with the concept that it is trying to illustrate, so the answer might not seem like it’s correct.
• Look at the wording of each answer! There might be a slight difference that makes one answer a better choice than the other. Focus on their wording to see if there are any inconsistencies that makes them incorrect.
• Trust your instinct! Don’t stress too much over a question that you aren’t sure about.
• If you have time at the end, go back to ones that you skipped/ look over your test. It doesn’t pay to rush since you aren’t leaving, so why not make the most out of your time?
• Understand why other answers aren’t correct so you can be sure that your answer is correct.
• Make sure you have time to fill out the bubbling sheet— the proctors will NOT give you extra time to continue bubbling answers in.
• Do NOT leave any questions blank. If you do not know the answer, choose the best option!