10 Unhinged AP Exam Study Tips That Actually Work
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Tired of the same old advice to “review your notes” and “get a good night’s sleep”? We've got you covered. These aren't your grandparents' study tips. We'll be diving into even more of our top tips for acing AP exams in our AP Bootcamps this weekend (April 18-19) and next, but here are ten pieces of advice especially curated by the My Ivy Education team to tide you over in the meantime.
If your AP exams are around the corner and traditional study tips are not cutting it, it may be time to get a little unhinged. Sometimes the best way to remember material, stay motivated, and actually focus is to make studying weird - and fun - enough that your brain pays attention.
Here are 10 chaotic-but-effective AP exam study tips to help you lock in before test day.
1. Use Flavor Memory Hacks
Chew a specific flavor of gum or suck on a certain mint while studying one subject.
For example:
Peppermint = AP Biology
Cinnamon = APUSH
Spearmint = AP Calculus
Then, chew that same flavor during the exam. Taste and smell are strongly tied to memory, so recreating the same sensory cue can help trigger recall when you're struggling to remember that one all-important fact.
2. Use Scent to Summon Knowledge
Along a similar vein, use a subtle scent while studying—perfume, cologne, lotion, or essential oil diffuser. Then apply a tiny bit to your wrists before the exam.
Important note: tiny bit. Think 'I can get a whiff if I bring my wrist to my nose,' not 'everyone in the room can smell me.' Dedicated, not disruptive!
3. Ignore the “Don’t Cram” Crowd
People love to say you should rest the day before the exam. We disagree.
"Cramming doesn't promote long-term memorization." "The brain needs rest to encode memories." Nah. What you need to ace your AP exams isn't long-term memorization - it's short-term memorization. If there are units you still don't fully know, formulas you keep forgetting, or essay structures you haven't practiced until you can do them in your sleep, the day before is absolutely the time to grind. Clear your schedule, grab your favorite drinks and snacks, and settle in for a day of attacking your weakest areas until you know them inside and out - not through mindless rereading, but through targeted problem-solving.
4. Start With Practice Problems, Not Notes
Most students waste hours “studying” by rereading material they already recognize. We completely disagree.
Instead of starting your study sessions with passively reviewing your notes or the textbook, try this:
Start with practice multiple-choice or FRQs
Take note of areas you don't know well just yet
Briefly review your notes to refresh your memory
Practice problems over and over until you get them right
Repeat
This forces active recall, which is significantly stronger than passive review for encoding memories.
5. Be Ridiculous on Purpose
Your brain remembers weird things. So:
Draw absurd comics explaining the material
Make terrible-on-purpose mnemonics
Turn vocab into jokes. The more groan-inducing, the better
Recite formulas while dancing around your room (or pacing dramatically if you have two left feet!)
If it feels silly, it's probably memorable.
6. Try the "Taylor Swift Treadmill Workout" Method
Remember hearing about how, to prepare for the infamous Eras Tour, Taylor Swift exercised on a treadmill every day while singing her entire setlist, walking during slow songs and running during fast ones? We're going to take a little inspiration here. Start by choosing your own playlist with a mix of slower and faster songs - Eras Tour-related or not.
Then, study like this:
Slow songs = review notes
Fast songs = solve as many problems as possible before the song ends
This alternating approach adds urgency, keeps energy up, and stops you from zoning out.
7. Curate “Lock In” Music
Find music that makes you feel like the main character of academic success.
Popular options:
Dark academia classical playlists
Movie soundtracks
Fantasy studying playlists
Instrumental lo-fi
Dramatic orchestral music
If it makes you feel like you are training at a secret academy instead of reviewing AP Chemistry, even better.
8. Study to Defeat Your Opps
Often, a little friendly one-sided competition works when nothing else does the trick. Here's what you're going to do. First, pick an academic rival. It can be:
A classmate
Someone you always see studying at the library
Hermione Granger
Rory Gilmore
Your own past self
Anyone of your choosing, so long as you feel simultaneously inspired by them and a deep inner longing to rise to their level - the ideal recipe for success.
Then remind yourself:
If you stop studying, they win.
And they cannot win.
9. Weaponize Accountability
The 21st century is the age of the surveillance state. You might as well use it to your advantage.
Try:
FaceTiming a friend while both of you silently study
Joining virtual study rooms
Using anonymous Discord servers built to help people focus (think turning on your camera and having fellow students yell at you over the chat whenever you look like you're slacking off - works like a charm)
Sharing goals with a study buddy and checking in every hour. The pressure's on to have updates to report back on!
This approach uses the concept of body doubling, in which people feel more motivated to get a task done if they do it alongside someone else, to your advantage.
10. Scary Hour
Set a timer for one hour - the "Scary Hour."
During that hour, you can only work on the material you have been avoiding:
The chapter you hate
The FRQ type you never practice
The unit you skipped mentally in February
The formulas you keep pretending you know
Usually, the dread is worse than the task itself. Once Scary Hour ends, everything else feels easy. Plus, you'll probably pleasantly surprise yourself with how much less terrifying everything you've been procrastinating on is than you thought. It might not even take the full hour, in which case you can use the leftover minutes to keep practicing until you can do it in your sleep.
Final Advice: Make Studying Interesting
The biggest AP mistake students make is making studying so boring that their brain refuses to engage.
Your brain likes novelty, pressure, emotion, competition, and absurdity. Use that. So yes—be strategic. But also be weird, be goofy, and make studying fun.
Want More AP Exam Study Tips (Whether Unhinged or Fully Hinged)?
Come to our AP Bootcamps, happening this weekend (April 18-19) and over the next several weekends. We’ll help you master the material, maximize your score, and walk into exam day feeling ready to crush it. The deadline to register for this weekend's AP Bootcamps is TONIGHT, April 16, so make sure to sign up ASAP by clicking the button below.
AP Bootcamps Happening April 18-19
• AP Physics 2
• AP World History - Modern
• AP Chemistry
• AP English Language and Composition
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