Hello everyone! Have you checked out the study section for AP World History exam study resources yet? If you haven't already, please visit it, it's chock-full of helpful resources to help you prepare for the exam. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Katey Z and I am a TA for Mr. Sallese's APWII class. I LOVE the course and the class and AP World History II is my favorite class and the best class I have taken in high school. 
      For many students, including myself when I took the course,  APWH can seem daunting at times but really it isn't all that bad! In this blog post, I will be sharing with you one major thing that I used to help me study for the APWH exam and get a 5! I firmly believe that anyone can be successful on this exam, with just the right amount of effort and determination :)

      For me, when it came time to study for the exam, I didn't focus immediately on memorizing every little detail about every civilization ever. No, no, no! Instead, your primary focus should be on the OVERARCHING THEMES. I cannot stress this enough! If you don't understand key themes in history, you will have a mighty hard time doing well on this exam, regardless of you having a good memory or not. Study and know key themes by heart. Make sure you can identify them quickly and be able to link similarities between civilizations as well as point out differences.

      You may be asking: but Katelyn, how is this going to help me?

      Well, if you know the overarching themes and trends that occur over and over again in history, you will be able to more readily identify key aspects of ANY civilization. Let me explain it a little more: say you were discussing the ailing state of the Ottoman empire. You may get the question as to how the Ottoman empire got to this point. If you knew the trend followed China, the Ottoman empire, and Japan, you would know that when these regions closed themselves off from the rest of the world, they missed out on a lot of technological advances made by the European nations, resulting in them becoming technologically inferior. Now, we'll exclude Japan, since they ended up catching up. But China didn't and neither did the Ottoman empire, resulting in their nations becoming seriously weak and susceptible to Western imperialism. An example of this can be seen in China, where many Western powers such as Britain carved out spheres of influence and forced unequal treaties on the Chinese government. Bearing a parallel to China, the Ottoman empire was subjected to unfair agreements of extraterritoriality. 

      Now do you see how knowing a general trend (nations who closed off their borders to foreigners lost out on cultural diffusion and tech advances, resulting in them becoming technologically inferior over time, which eventually allowed for Western imperialism in those nations) can aid you in connecting many things that are actually very similar to each other in different regions? It has helped you form a little web of things connected to many other things and this way, memorizing won't be so hard! It is almost like a form of implicit memorization, where you naturally start memorizing things. This helped me IMMENSELY in doing well throughout the whole course, not just on the exam and I hope it will help you as well. For more information on overarching themes and key themes to know, please visit the "STUDY" section of this website and go into the AP World History study resources page. Good luck studying!

Hey guys! First blog post here, pretty exciting :) Today, I decided to just talk about what my current supplies I use daily are right now (I'll do an update post for these every once in a while). These aren't in any particular order by the way. Just a quick disclaimer: no one needs this many art supplies and you don't need expensive supplies to make amazing art but they're just what I currently like to use!

The links/"ads" I have included of the products are Amazon Affiliate links/"ads." I am an Amazon Affiliate and if you purchase products through those links/"ads," I will earn a small commission at NO extra cost to you and it helps support this website and my work. Thank you!

I started using these brushes a while ago and they are absolutely wonderful. I use the size 6 most often. These brushes are made of a blend of synthetic and real squirrel hair, which allows it to have spring and snap but also hold a lot of water and release pigment in a nice even dispersion. These brushes have also helped me learn to paint more loosely, which I am loving. 

The current best deal I could find on these brushes is a pack of 3 here: ​https://amzn.to/2XxirBx

Ever since I have been doing art (since I was a little kid), I have always used this sketchbook and it has NEVER failed me, regardless of the media I have used in it. It handles watercolor quite well, in my opinion, with only some buckling and I believe this is due to heavy sizing, which is great! It is also at a very affordable price for such good quality. 
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​You can purchase it here on sale right now: https://amzn.to/2JXiC0X

I love, love, love these brushes! Not only are they excellent quality, but they are very affordable as well! I got my pack of 9 brushes for $21.99. At such an amazing quality, they should really be priced far above what they are right now. I use the size 4 every single day and I reach for these brushes over my much more expensive ones all the time. I can't say enough good things about this company. Their packaging and quality is on point for every product, including these brushes. 

I checked Amazon and it is sold out right now unfortunately.
However, synthetic brushes that are good quality that I use as well are Princeton Snap brushes and you can get them here: 
https://amzn.to/3cftTpp 
​https://amzn.to/2JZJGNi

I have the pink set shown above. The packaging is so cute! I don't really use waterbrushes but it did come with one. The paints in this palette are really good. They feel like high student grade, maybe even artist grade but they do lack pigment and lightfast information so that is the only downside. However, that doesn't stop me from reaching for them all the time as I just won't make anything I'll sell with these and I'll be fine. I love using them in my sketchbook. They rewet well to a creamy texture and are very vibrant and pigmented.

The pink option is sold out upon checking but it also comes in many other pretty colors!
You can get the whole set here: https://amzn.to/3a0HMqi
(Pink option is available for just the palette by itself option)
You can get just the palette itself with the paints on sale here: https://amzn.to/2yUQDgj
https://amzn.to/3kUtYDl
https://amzn.to/3jbdYMJ

This paint palette is also very cutely packaged and the paints are great as well. This paint palette is made by the same company as the previous palette and the paints in both sets perform remarkably similar to the Paul Rubens paint palette, which is the official artist grade set made by the company. This paint palette is a joy to use and the paint in it works like those in the previous set.

You can get this set here: ​https://amzn.to/2RtD4dW

FOR MORE ART SUPPLY LISTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, PLEASE CHECK OUT MY AMAZON LISTS!