This Friday, students from all over the country will take the highly anticipated AP United States History Exam. After nine months of Mrs. Catalano’s classwork, every Walt Whitman student registered for the test is well prepared.

However, with only a few days left before the exam, it is important to do some last minute studying. A great resource to learn our country’s history is ABC’s hit series Scandal.

How can this TV show about a fictional America help you get a 5 on the AP? Just check out five events from the show that replicate important moments in our country’s history.

1. Filibusters. Season 5 Episode 9: Senator Mellie Grant is filibustering an act opposing Planned Parenthood in an effort to protect women’s abortion rights and to prove her political skills are more than marrying a future president.

June 25, 2013: Wendy Davis executed an eleven-hour long filibuster to block Senate Bill 5, a measure that included more restrictive abortion regulations for Texas.

     2. Supreme Court Justices Die.  Season 2 Episode 13: Supreme Court            Justice Verna Thornton died from what the media believed to be            cancer (spoiler, it was not cancer).

February 13, 2016:  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died of natural causes. Wait! Thornton died Season 2 Episode 13 and Scalia died 02/13/16. Coincidence or helpful study tip?

       3. Presidential Have Affairs. Season 5 Episode 3: Although the entire show is focused on President Fitzgerald Grant’s affair with Olivia Pope,            this is the episode in which the President’s interview to deny the affair was stopped by his press secretary when she informed him Pope                  had confirmed the affair in other news outlets.  

January 26, 1998: President Bill Clinton stated, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

       4. Attempted Assassinations. Season 2 Episode 8: The country is panicked after the attempted assassination of President Grant. A sniper                  shot the President and one of his Secret Service men as he walked the red carpet of his televised birthday event.

March 30, 1981: While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. Hinckley’s motivation for the attack was to impress actress Jodie Foster, over whom he had developed an obsession after seeing her in the film Taxi Driver. This was seen on live television.

       5. Death of a First Child. Season 3 Episode 18: Jerry Grant Jr. died on stage at a campaign rally for his father’s reelection due to                                    bacterial meningitis. It gave President Grant his reelection victory but made him an angry alcoholic for a short period of time.

July 7, 1924: Calvin Coolidge Jr. died of a blood infection the month after his father was nominated for his second term as president by the Republican Party. President Coolidge later said, “when [his son] died, the power and glory of the Presidency went with him” (The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge).

As you can see, watching Scandal can provide you with some useful information for the AP exam. So put down Mrs. Catalano’s 26 packets of review material and go watch ABC’s Scandal Thursdays at 9 p.m.