Advanced Placement classes, administered by the College Board, are rigorous courses meant to expound upon a subject to the benefit of the student. When these courses are seen on a transcript, colleges identify those students as adept, or as willing to sponsor their education. As such, Advanced Placement, or AP, classes are designed to expose a student to materials otherwise unseen in their school system and demand varying work depending on the course.
An AP history exam, for instance, covers several periods and region through which material is taught. Its courses – AP European History, AP United States History, and AP World History – possess independent periods due to the range of history specific to them. The AP World History exam, for example, is delineated into six periods from 8,000 BCE to the present. In contrast, the AP United States History exam is examined in nine periods from approximately 1491 to the present.
Although the structure of each course varies, the final exam (besides any assessment provided by the school through which the course is taken) is identical. The exam consists of two sections, with two portions per section: the multiple-choice and short-answer question (SAQ) section, and the document-based question (DBQ) and long-essay question (LEQ). Every exam is three hours and 15 minutes long, and is proctored on a specific day each testing year. The exam is graded on a one to five scale, ranging from no recommendation to extremely well qualified, respectively.
These are the basics, besides the themes, learning focuses, and skills developed within an AP history course. By merit of its rigor, an AP history course should be considered for a student who consistently demonstrates a strong work ethic, responsibility, and focus, or for a student who is interested in the course content.
Passing the Exam, and a Realistic Mindset
You will not score a one or a five on the AP history exam without effort. In the span of a school year, it is possible to earn a two, three, or a four depending on one’s aptitude. The majority of the exam score is a result of a student’s understanding of the exam, and their use of time throughout. Secondary to their understanding of the exam, a student will succeed based on their comfort with the material. Practically speaking, comfort with the material and the format of the exam are crucial to passing the exam itself.
Consider the AP history exam as an assessment on three types of knowledge concerning the subject: simple, usable, and adept. The subject depends on the course, but the knowledge and its accompanying skills, such as document analysis and interpretation, are prevalent in the exam.
Simple knowledge comes from a basic understanding of the material without dates, figures, or specific detail. For instance, if a student has “simple knowledge” about the American Revolution, they may be able to state that it occurred at the end of the eighteenth century, it involved Great Britain and America, and that it resulted it an American victory.
Usable knowledge demands some understanding of the material, but does not require a student to understand every aspect of an event or figure. With respect to the American Revolution, a student demonstrates “usable knowledge” by recalling the decade or exact year when an event occurred, may know that it was led by George Washington and King George III, and has little or some ability to construct context for the event. Context, in this regard, are the events leading to, and departing from, the event – the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
Adept knowledge requires that a student has focused on the material, and the student has thorough context of the event and its role in the development of a central idea. A student may demonstrate their adept knowledge in the LEQ portion of the exam, or use their skills to analyze and ascertain questions efficiently.
Simple, usable, and adept knowledge are supported by document analysis, interpretation, and writing. Under the category of “historical-reasoning skills,” these are nurtured by the AP history course instructor or learned through practice. Additionally, YouTube educators, College Board resources, and materials from a course instructor may enhance a student’s abilities.
Understanding the Exam, and Using Your Knowledge
The multiple-choice portion of the exam consists of 55 questions, and uses simple knowledge in addition to historical analysis. Each stimulus is given two to five questions, and the student is tasked with quickly evaluating the content. Factors of interest include: demands of the question, date of publication, author, and any immediate context provided by the question.
Questions relating to the stimulus should be considered in context, through a student’s simple or usable knowledge. Some questions may not relate to the stimulus, and instead relate to pertinent materials or content to which the stimulus is adjacent; these questions demand memory of content.
If the stimulus provided is a political cartoon depicting Tammany Hall and the rise of political machine bosses, a question such as, “What benefit did political machines provide for urban America in the period 1870-1924?” may appear in this section. These questions rely upon a student’s knowledge directly, as opposed to the truly stimulus-based questions that can be guessed based on the document.
The short-answer question (SAQ) portion of the exam follows, and allows 40 minutes total. This period should be organized into three writing sessions, each approximately thirteen minutes long, and the SAQs will require a specific response and evidence to support a conclusion. Prompts may or not provide a stimulus, such as primary sources, historians’ interpretations, or a general theme and time period.
SAQs revolve around one piece of specific evidence, or interpretation of the provided documents. Instructors have created the Answer, Cite, Explain method (ACE), to clarify the type of response the question demands. For each component of the SAQ, a student should use ACE.
If the question reads, “Briefly explain one important similarity between the North and the South from 1800-1848,” a response may read: “The North and South were similar from 1800-1848 because they found labor to fuel their newly-formed sections [Answer]. The North used immigrant labor, which was cheap and plentiful, to fuel their industrialization; the South used slave labor, which was vested and stable, to maintain their agricultural economy [Cite]. In their pursuits, both the North and the South found sources of labor, typically minority voices, to succeed in each section. [Explain]”
The SAQ doesn’t require adept analysis of the content, but it does require at least one specific example and an assertion. Short-answer questions usually appear in sets of three – each to be answered using ACE – and sometimes work off of previous responses. Thus, a student should consider their depth of knowledge and plan according to entirety of the SAQ. For instance, if part a and part b must be compared and contrasted in part c, a student must prepare examples they can cross-examine.
The document-based question (DBQ) portion of the exam allows 60 minutes, and provides stimuli similar to those seen in the multiple-choice portion. However, the question demands an essay-standard response using analysis from each document (seven total) provided. Tom Richey provides an excellent rubric for writing DBQs, and a student’s instructor should supply the resources to understand document analysis, ranging from description, to support, to explanation: Richey’s rubric can be found here.
DBQs demand usable and adept understanding of the material to be completed well, but can be approached with minimal knowledge whatsoever. Using only simple knowledge, a student can earn four points by providing a veritable thesis, and interpreting each document successfully. With context and specific historical evidence (beyond given stimuli), a student can earn six points. For a perfect score of seven, a student must demonstrate adept knowledge or show maturity in their writing. Realistically speaking, a score of six is more than acceptable.
Document-based questions measure a student’s ability to relate concepts to concrete evidence samples, given through data, primary sources, photography, and propaganda. When a student understands how to describe the document provided (simple knowledge), understands how to use a stimulus to support their thesis (usable knowledge), and can explain the document further (adept knowledge), they are well-equipped to succeed in this portion.
To explain a document, instructors suggest five factors (HIPPO) for a student to consider: historical context, intended audience, purpose, point of view, and outside evidence. For students with usable and adept knowledge of the material, HIPPO supplies the basis for writing their response; for student with simple knowledge, HIPPO creates a starting point in document analysis.
The long-essay question (LEQ) portion of the exam allows 40 minutes, and is a demonstration of specific adept knowledge. A LEQ prompt will refer to a period and a theme or condition within the period, such as changes and continuities in immigration from 1776-1924 in the United States. To answer these questions, students must prepare in class. They should identify themes within each period, and specialize in a topic that may appear on the LEQ.
A student’s response to the long-essay question depends on their comfort and understanding of the material.
Classroom Habits and Participation
Exposure to material invites absorption of the material. Simple, usable, and adept knowledge are shortcuts to understand the rigor and demands of each portion, but in-class participation is invaluable. As students interact with classroom materials and activities, their repetitious exposure increases the likelihood of memorization. Moreover, a student can gauge their confidence and skill in a topic based on how they perform in the classroom setting.
A student can pass the exam (scoring a three) by attending class and completing homework. A student can fail on the exam by refusing to interact with the material, by skipping or missing classes, and by being ignorant to the lessons given by an instructor. A student can excel on the exam by refusing to be ignorant, by meeting the pace of the class and asking for assistance when needed, and by cultivating a genuine interest in the material.
The AP exam is meant to judge a student’s abilities, yet it doubly reflects their work ethic, commitment, and responsibility. It is with the student that success, or abject failure, will rest.
Afterword: Raw Score and Strategic Planning
AP exams can be pursued from the perspective of one’s score per portion: if a student understands their weaknesses, they can work to resolve them or plan to avoid them by specializing in other portions of the test. There are online calculators to judge student performance and possible scores, which can be found here. After several minutes with this tool, a student can ascertain what scores they will strive for with respect to the multiple-choice, SAQ, DBQ, and LEQ portions.
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