AP高分经验丨4天自学AP美国史拿5分，获布朗大学青睐，她是怎么做到的？
Belinda是一位出生成长在美国北卡州（North Carolina）的华裔美国女生，从当地一所理科高中毕业。她的高中没有设AP美国史的课程，但她还是通过高一时上的“美国研究”课，再加上自己4天的自学，在2017年参加AP美国史的考试，并获得了5分！
她今年录取了常春藤大学之一的Brown University (布朗大学），并打算学习历史专业。
今年夏天，她来到深圳PeerBang办公室做暑期实习。学姐认为她的AP美史学习经验和观点很值得大家学习，所以特地邀请她分享自学AP美国史并拿5分的经验。
Belinda只会基础中文，所以用英文写的经验文章。建议大家读原文。学姐段后附上中文翻译，帮助大家理解。
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Belinda：
Exam Year（考试时间）: 2017
Exam Score（AP美国史分数）: 5
In my junior and senior years of high school, I attended a two-year public boarding school with a heavy emphasis on science and mathematics. The upsides? Being away from home, passionate students and faculty, and an incredible selection of STEM courses. The downsides? Awful cafeteria food, communal bathrooms, and no AP courses in humanities or social science.
高二、高三，我就读的是一所为期两年的公立寄宿学校，学校的教学重点是科学和数学。好处？我可以离开家了，而且这里还有热情的同学和老师，以及超棒的数理化课程选择。缺点？可怕的食堂食物，公共浴室，而且学校也没有开设人文学科或社会科学的AP课程。
Instead, all juniors were required to take the yearlong American Studies course, and many attempted to gain college credit for their efforts by taking the AP US History exam at the end of the year. I was one of them, and what follows are the most important things I learned in the process.
相反，所有的高二学生都必须参加为期一年的“美国研究”课程。学完后，很多人都试图通过参加AP美国历史考试，来获得大学学分。我也是其中之一，而接下来就是我在这个过程中学到的最重要的事情。
Although I officially began studying for the exam about a week before the test date, I would say that the bulk of my preparation lay in the work I did throughout my American Studies course. Our teacher did not believe in tests or quizzes, so our work mainly consisted of (many, many) essays that analyzed different periods and themes in American history. Thus, I became proficient in two skills crucial to succeeding on the essay portion of the APUSH exam: demonstrating your understanding of topics in US history, and perhaps more importantly, BS-ing it. (Sorry, Dr. Brandon.)
虽然我是在考试日期前一周才正式开始备考，但其实我的大部分的准备工作都在之前的“美国研究”课里打下基础了。我们的老师不相信考试或者测验，所以当时我们的课业主要包括（很多很多的）分析美国历史不同时期和主题的写作和论文。因此，我习得了两项对APUSH考试写作部分的成功至关重要的技能：展示你对美国历史主题的理解，以及更重要的是，用有限的史实在考试中进行貌似有道理的扯淡。 （对不起啦，我的老师布兰登博士）
Disappointingly, I've found that both skills involve similar approaches; passable BS-ing does require you to know a fair amount of stuff. Specifically, I maintained a very basic mental timeline of major periods/trends in US history (examples: the American Revolution in the 18th century, Jacksonian democracy in the 19th century, feminist movements from the 19th century to now), as well as a couple of significant events or ideas related to each period/trend—bonus points if I remembered the year (or decade, honestly). That way, if I was asked to write about a certain period/trend, I had events I could use as examples, and if I was asked to write about an event, I had periods/trends that I could use to contextualize it. Even if you can only recall a single relevant event or period/trend (often the case for me), as long as you can explain its significance for a couple sentences, you come off sounding pretty darn knowledgeable.
令人失望的是，我发现这两种技能归根结底是一样的；要让你的扯淡让人信服，也需要你知道相当数量的史实。具体来说，我记住了美国历史上主要时期和趋势的基本时间线（例如：18世纪的美国革命，19世纪的杰克逊主义民主，19世纪至今的女权运动），以及一些和每个时期或趋势相关的重大事件（我甚至都没记住很多事件的具体年份或者年代）。这样，如果考题要求我写一个特定的时期/趋势，我都可以用这些重要事件作为例子；而如果考题考到一个具体事件，那我知道这个事件发生时的历史背景和时代趋势，我就可以用它们来对这个事件进行语境化。其实即使你只能记起一个和这个时期/趋势相关的事件，只要你能用几句话解释它的重要性，你都能听起来相当知识渊博。
Another important discovery I made while studying for the exam was that not all time periods in American history were created equal—at least in terms of the exam's distribution of questions. Earlier, when I said that my official preparation started "about a week" before the test date, what I really meant was four tear-filled days that seemed immeasurably far away from the times when I was young, hopeful, and knowledgeable about colonial America.
我在备考期间的另一项重要经验是，至少从出题概率来说，美国历史上的不同时间段并不平等。我之前说过，我的正式备考工作是在正式考试日期之前“大约一周”，我的意思是，这是四个充满泪水的日子，因为当时的我，仅仅熟悉了早期美国殖民时代这一段历史。
As I leafed through the pages of the Kaplan prep book my roommate had lent me, I was met with events upon historical events that I had never encountered in my American Studies class (which had only reached somewhere in the 1930s by that time), and in an act of wild desperation, I began to painstakingly copy down and memorize every date and event mentioned in the Kaplan book and online prep resources. By my second night of studying, I was a nervous, list-making mess who had just reached the end of the Revolutionary War, and my roommate, who had gotten a 5 on the exam the year before, decided to intervene. She instructed me to skip to the 20th century, spending more time on the things my American Studies class hadn't covered, and then to double back to the Civil War if I had time.
当我翻看我的室友借给我的Kaplan考培书的页面时，我发现了我在“美国研究”课上从未遇到过的历史事件（那时候读到了20世纪30年代）。在绝望中，我开始煞费苦心地复制并尝试记住Kaplan书和在线备考资源中提到的每一个日期和事件。在我学习的第二个晚上，我才看到了美国独立革命战争结束那里。而我的室友在前一年在考试中获得了5分，她终于看不下去，决定进行干预。她教我跳过20世纪，花更多的时间去过一遍我在美国研究课没有学到的史实上。然后如果我有时间的话，再回到美国内战那个时间段加倍学习。
I didn't end up having time to study the Civil War, but the knowledge I gained and reinforced through my patchwork studying strategy served me exceedingly well; most of the exam dealt with the exact periods I had studied in the past four days. Of course, every exam's distribution of questions is a little different, and it wasn't like I had never studied the Civil War (or other things that happened between the end of the Revolutionary War and the 20th century) before I took the exam. However, it is good to keep in mind that you should allocate your studying time strategically (especially when you're cramming), adjusting for the exam's question distribution and the gaps in your own knowledge of American history. Below is a chart from College Board that might be handy to reference when it comes time to study.
我最终没有时间学习美国内战内容，但是我这样的有针对性的拼凑学习策略最终很有效。正式考试中的大部分内容考的都是我临时抱佛脚时所专注的时间段。当然啦，每次考试的问题分布都有点不同，而且在我参加考试之前，我还是对美国内战有点基础知识的。但是，请记住，你应该有策略地分配学习时间（特别是当你临时抱佛脚、考前突击时），根据出题分布比例去调整自己的备考计划。以下就是College Board的出题比例图表，在学习时可以多参考。
I think that's about all the advice I have. Despite the angst I brought upon myself with my ridiculous studying schedule, the process of preparing for, taking, and receiving my results for the AP US History exam was actually one of the key experiences driving me to study history in college. It reminded me that history isn't about specific isolated dates and events, but about how they all work together as parts of larger political, economic, and cultural movements that continually shape our current reality. Good luck, and have fun!
我想这就是我的所有建议啦。尽管我的拖延症学习计划给自己带来了焦虑，但这段时间的AP美国历史备考经历居然成为了我决定在大学学习历史的关键原因之一。因为我明白了，历史不是关于单调的日期、或者孤立的事件，而是要它们串联起来，理解它们是如何成为塑造我们当前更大的政治，经济和文化运动的一部分。
祝你好运，并希望你学得开心！
END
十分感谢Belinda为大家留下了在备考期间总结的学习方法和学习建议。通过了解5分学霸的学习方法，汲取学习经验，希望你也能发现和掌握学习的要点和秘诀喔！
学姐以后还会不定期推送各路大神的高分经验文。不想错过的同学，记得关注PeerBang！
文字由Belinda原创，版权归原作者和PeerBang所有
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