AP® Psychology Crash Course Book + Online

Larry Krieger, Jessica Flitter, Nancy Fenton

• Verlag: Research & Education Association
• Jahr: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780738686141
• Auflage: 2
• Thema: Manuali di studio
• Thema: Collocamento avanzato

REA's Crash Course for the AP® Psychology Exam - Gets You a Higher Advanced Placement® Score in Less Time

Revised for the 2015 Exam!

Crash Course is perfect for the time-crunched student, the last-minute studier, or anyone who wants a refresher on the subject.

Are you crunched for time? Have you started studying for your Advanced Placement® Psychology exam yet? How will you memorize everything you need to know before the test? Do you wish there was a fast and easy way to study for the exam AND boost your score?

If this sounds like you, don't panic. REA's Crash Course for AP® Psychology is just what you need. Our Crash Course gives you:

Targeted, Focused Review - Study Only What You Need to Know
Revised for the 2015 AP® Psychology exam, this Crash Course is based on an in-depth analysis of the revised AP® Psychology course description outline and sample AP® test questions. It covers only the information tested on the new exam, so you can make the most of your valuable study time.

Expert Test-taking Strategies
Crash Course presents detailed, question-level strategies for answering both the multiple-choice and essay questions. By following this advice, you can boost your score in every section of the test.

Take REA's Online Practice Exam
After studying the material in the Crash Course, go to the online REA Study Center and test what you've learned. Our practice exam features timed testing, detailed explanations of answers, and automatic scoring analysis. The exam is balanced to include every topic and type of question found on the actual AP® exam, so you know you're studying the smart way.

Whether you're cramming for the test at the last minute, looking for extra review, or want to study on your own in preparation for the exams - this is the study guide every AP® Psychology student must have.

When it's crucial crunch time and your Advanced Placement® exam is just around the corner, you need REA's Crash Course for AP® Psychology!

PART I:

INTRODUCTION

Chapter

1

Eight Keys for Success on the AP Psychology Exam

AP Psychology textbooks are very thick and contain hundreds of terms, the names of famous psychologists, and landmark research studies. If all of these facts had an equal chance of appearing on your Advanced Placement Psychology Exam, studying would be a nightmare. Where would you begin? What would you emphasize? As you prepare for this exam, is there any information you can safely omit? Or must you study everything?

1. Understanding the AP Psychology Scale

Many students believe they must make close to a perfect score to receive a 5. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each AP Psychology exam contains a total of 150 points—100 for the multiple-choice and 50 for the free-response questions. Here is the score range from the 2007 Released Exam:

This chart is not a misprint. As is clearly shown, you can earn a 5 by correctly answering just 75 percent of the questions, a 4 by correctly answering just 62 percent of the questions, and a 3 by correctly answering just 51 percent of the questions.

2. Understanding the AP Psychology Curriculum Outline

Many students believe that members of the AP Psychology exam development committee have the freedom to write any question they wish. This widespread belief is not true. AP Psychology test writers use a detailed curriculum outline that tells them the topics that can be tested. The curriculum outline is freely available in the AP Psychology Course Description Booklet. Here are the fourteen topics and the percentage of multiple-choice questions devoted to each topic:

History and Approaches	2–4 percent
Research Methods	8–10 percent
Biological Bases of Behavior	8–10 percent
Sensation and Perception	6–8 percent
States of Consciousness	2–4 percent
Learning	7–9 percent
Cognition	8–10 percent
Motivation and Emotion	6–8 percent
Developmental Psychology	7–9 percent
Personality	5–7 percent
Testing and Individual Differences	5–7 percent
Abnormal Behavior	7–9 percent
Treatment of Abnormal Behavior	5–7 percent
Social Psychology	8–10 percent

3. Understanding the Importance of the Released Exams and the AP Central Collection of Free-Response Questions

The College Board has released AP Psychology exams for the years 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2007. In addition, they provided an online exam for all teachers who participated in the AP course audit. Taken together, these five exams contain 500 released multiple-choice questions. In addition, the College Board’s AP Central website contains a full discussion of all the free-response questions asked from 1999 to the present.

This Crash Course book is based upon a careful analysis of all the released multiple-choice and free-response questions. These questions can be used to understand the priorities and patterns of the AP Psychology test writers. It is important to understand that the test writers’ top priority is to write an exam that is a valid and reliable measure of a defined body of knowledge. As a result, test questions cluster around very predictable and often-repeated topics.

4. Understanding the Importance of Key Terms, Key Psychologists, and Key Theories

Key terms, key psychologists, and key theories dominate the multiple-choice questions. Approximately, two-thirds of the multiple-choice questions test your knowledge of key terms. These questions typically ask you to identify either a definition of a term or the best example of a term. These key terms are defined and illustrated in Chapters 3 through 16. In addition, Chapter 2 provides a concise glossary of key terms.

The Course Description outline specifically identifies 62 psychologists who were major figures or key contributors in the 14 major content areas covered on the AP Psychology exam. Between 15 and 20 percent of the multiple-choice questions test your ability to identify these psychologists and their theories. Chapter 17 provides a concise summary of famous psychologists and their key theories and research findings.

5. Understanding the Importance of Research Methodology

Research methodology is the single most important topic on the AP Psychology exam. Taken together, the units on Research Methods (see Chapter 4) and Testing and Individual Differences (see Chapter 13) typically generate 13–15 multiple-choice questions that test your knowledge of methodology and statistics. In addition, methodology is the single most important topic tested in the free-response questions. Ten of the eighteen exams between 1992 and 2009 contained a free-response question devoted to research methodology. Interestingly, seven of the ten research methodology questions appeared on exams given in an even year.

6. Understanding the Overlap Between the Multiple-Choice and Free-Response Questions

Both the multiple-choice and the free-response questions are taken from topics covered in the Course Description Booklet’s Curriculum Outline. The AP Psychology Course Description booklet contains a particularly detailed topical outline. As a result, studying for the multiple-choice questions is tantamount to studying for the free-response questions. Most students fail to grasp the significance of this point. Since the multiple-choice questions are highly predictable, so are the free-response questions. The two types of questions overlap since they both test key concepts from the same topical outline.

7. Using Your Crash Course to Build a Winning Strategy

This Crash Course book is based on a careful analysis of the Course Description topical outline and all the released questions. Chapter 2 contains a concise glossary of the key terms you absolutely, positively have to know. Chapters 3 through 16 provide you with a detailed discussion of each content area covered on the AP Psychology Exam. Chapter 17 provides you with a digest of key figures and their research findings and theories. Chapter 18 provides you with a digest of key topics that are easily confused and frequently tested. Chapters 19 and 20 discuss test-taking strategies for the multiple-choice and free-response questions.

If you have time, review the entire book. This is desirable, but not mandatory. The chapters can be studied in any order. Each chapter provides you with a digest of key information that is repeatedly tested. Unlike most review books, the digests are not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, they are meant to focus your attention on the vital material you must study.

Focus your attention on studying a group of topics that will generate the winning coalition of points you need to score a 4 or 5. Research methods, learning, abnormal behavior, and the treatment of abnormal behavior are particularly important building blocks for any successful coalition of points. Taken together, these topics typically generate 50 points, or almost half the points you need to score a 5.

8. How to Supplement This Crash Course

Your Crash Course contains everything you need to know to score a 4 or 5, but for this important exam you should make use of everything that can help. The College Board’s website has useful information to help you prepare for the exam, includi...