💬AP Seminar Review
How Can I Get a 5 in AP Seminar?
How Can I Get a 5 in AP Seminar?
Yo what's poppin! 🍿 You're signed up for Seminar and happened to stumble on this post, wondering how you can score the coveted 5️⃣! Well, you're definitely in the right place.
As you probably know, AP Seminar is more skills-centered than many AP courses, but it still has important assessed content: inquiry, source analysis, evaluating evidence and perspectives, synthesis, argumentation, teamwork, presentations, reflection, and ethical research practices. Because AP Capstone is two classes and AP Seminar asks you to read, write, research, and present at a high level, it can be a super intimidating course.
However, AP Seminar is challenging, but many students succeed when they stay organized, follow the task directions carefully, and practice the course skills consistently. So how do you get a 5?
To earn a 5 in AP Seminar, you need to perform well across all three scored components: Performance Task 1 (Team Project and Presentation, 20%), Performance Task 2 (Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation, 35%), and the End-of-Course Exam (45%). A strong score depends on both the performance tasks and the exam, so prepare for all three.
Some tips to get a 5
1. Time 👏 Management 👏
A great piece of advice for anyone in any AP class, but especially those in AP Seminar, is to get a hold onto a time management system. I'm not saying you have to live in planner-land and start time blocking every minute of your day (though for those people, props, y'all are incredible), but setting up a time management plan will make your life so much easier.
As one past student puts it:
Please don’t procrastinate. The last thing you want to be doing the week before the paper is due is...trying to figure out where to start with your paper. Start early so that you still have time to do edits, reread your paper, and have enough time to put your best work forward. —Charly Castillo
In AP Seminar, you're going to have deadline after deadline after deadline. Whether these are research deadlines in which you need to find sources, annotate them, and write annotated bibliographies, or outline deadlines (we'll get to outlines in the next section), or straight parts of your paper, deadlines will rule your life. 😐
Therefore, you need to keep your time management working and put yourself on some schedule because the due dates you'll be facing build on one another.
2. Outlining Your Essays Before Writing
In AP Seminar, you'll write two main papers: your IRR (Individual Research Report) and your IWA (Individual Written Argument). While it may seem tempting to simply do your research and dive straight into writing the essay, outlining is such an important part of the writing process! It will make writing your paper easier.
Before you even think about starting a paper or even simply a body paragraph, outline it! There are two major types of outlines: the broad outline and the essay outline.
The first of the two is arguably the easiest; you can throw together a broad outline pretty quickly if you have an idea of what your major purpose is and the points you want to make. ✍️
Broad Outline
A useful outline should reflect the purpose of the task. For the IRR, organize around the area of investigation, key sources, analysis of reasoning and evidence, and comparison of relevant perspectives. For the IWA, organize around a clear line of reasoning that connects your thesis, claims, evidence, counterargument or limitations, and conclusion. There is no single required formula, but your structure should be logical, evidence-based, and aligned to the rubric.
These major bullets represent your broad outline - that is, what topics are you going to cover and in what order? Essentially, a broad outline designs your line of reasoning, an incredibly important concept in any strong piece of writing. 📝
Essay Outline
You can use your broad outline as a foundation to write the second type of outline: a detailed essay outline. This not only means referencing your evidence, but putting direct quotes, charts, citations, and explanations in outline format.
Essentially, your detailed outline forces you to write your essay mentally before and get most of the mental grunt work out of the way. For example, here's a snippet from my detailed outline of my IWA from the 2018-19 school year:
As you outline and draft, make sure you attribute ideas and evidence accurately, use a consistent citation style, and avoid plagiarism or fabrication—ethical research practices are essential in AP Seminar.
Outlining is an incredibly useful tool that will follow you even beyond Seminar into Research and even just your ordinary papers.
3. Use Your Peers as Editors
AP Seminar is unique in the fact that, for the most part, you can choose your topics, whether in a group or by yourself. In addition, because AP Seminar performance tasks have rules about the kind of feedback teachers can give once official work is underway, your classmates can be a useful source of peer feedback. Your teacher can still teach course skills, explain task directions, and provide support that is allowed under College Board policies.
As a former AP Seminar student brilliantly notes:
Work with your partners/peers when you can, even if your papers aren't the same! —Dylan Black
Peer editing is an INCREDIBLY useful tool because not only do you get editing done on your paper like normal, but your peers will also know the rubric for your essays. They can help you notice places where your reasoning is unclear, where your evidence needs better explanation, or where a citation is missing. Just make sure any feedback still leads to work that is truly your own and properly attributed.
4. Practicing Presentations
You'll have to do two presentations along with your papers, one with a group (your TMP, or Team Multimedia Presentation) and one alone (your IMP, or Individual Multimedia Presentation). These presentations will have information from your paper, so the presentation's actual creation is rarely the difficult part, rather the presenting part is.
You may have done presentations in other classes, but in AP Seminar, your presentation skills are part of the rubric, so it's crucial for you to take time to make your presentation engaging and well presented. 📊
Here are your goals when designing your presentation:
- Clear and presentable design
- Readable text
- Engagement from audience
To hit these goals, you have to explicitly make choices regarding slide design (such as color schemes, fonts, and more)! The number 1️⃣ issue in many slides is too much text. You should not have to put an absurd amount of text on a slide, rather only the major points you will hit on; the rest is for you to memorize or have on notes.
In AP Seminar, presentation scores depend on more than slide aesthetics. Your presentation should communicate a clear argument, use evidence effectively, consider multiple perspectives, address limitations and implications, and prepare you to answer defense questions thoughtfully.
See if you can notice the differences in these two slides:
Furthermore, in your actual presentation, a great way to earn some easy points is to practice and prepare. While this doesn't necessarily mean building out a full-blown script and memorizing it, making sure you know your points and specific details like statistics will make your presentation that much better.
Think of it like this, when you're watching a presentation, you may not notice that a presenter is doing something right, but you will notice if something's wrong. Small things like posture, eye contact, and the tone/volume of your voice play a large part in the quality of your presentation.
5. Prepare for the End-of-Course Exam
AP Seminar also includes a 2-hour end-of-course exam worth 45% of your score. On the exam, you complete two source-based written responses. You should practice reading a packet of sources critically, identifying and evaluating claims, reasoning, and evidence, comparing perspectives across sources, and writing clear, evidence-based arguments under time pressure. Successful exam prep means practicing both source analysis and timed writing.
6. Treat Seminar as a Learning Experience, Not Just a Class 🚗
As you might've heard in your life at one point, it's all about the journey, not the destination! This applies 💯% to Seminar, as you'll get so much more out of the class when you don't think of it as just an exam score!
Treating Seminar as a journey to obtain a set of skills that you can carry throughout and past high school will motivate you to learn. Because AP Seminar is more skills-centered than many AP courses, you are constantly building abilities in how to write, think, research, analyze information, evaluate perspectives, and communicate arguments.
These are skills that will be instrumental in not only your English classes but in anything you read or think about in the future. Because of this, treating Seminar as a learning experience and not just a grade will help you learn more effectively!
Closing
With these 6 tips, the Fiveable community, and a little bit of work on your part, getting a 5️⃣ on AP Seminar means staying on top of your writing, presentations, and exam prep. After May, you'll be popping off with your new Seminar skills 🎊