APUSH
EXAM DESCRIPTION
EXAM DESCRIPTION
 3 hours 15 minutes
 SECTION 1 – MULTIPLE CHOICE & SHORT ANSWER
55 questions = 55 minutes= 40% of the test score
4 questions = 45 minutes = 20% of the test score
 SECTION 2 – ESSAYS
DBQ Essay = 1 question; 60 minutes– 25% of the test score
LONG Essay = choose 1 question; 35 minutes = 15% of the test
score
MULTIPLE CHOICE STRATEGIES
 4 ANSWER CHOICES ONLY; A,B,C,D
 55 MINUTES for 55 QUESTIONS
 EACH SET OF 2-5 QUESTIONS IS GROUPED and RELATES TO A PRIMARY
OR SECONDARY SOURCE STIMULUS MATERIAL
READ AND ANALYZE THE STIMULUS MATERIAL CAREFULLY
PAY ATTENTION TO WHEN THE SOURCE WAS WRITTEN, AND IF IT IS
PRIMARY OR SECONDARY
 THE SET OF QUESTIONS FOCUSES ON A SPECIFIC TIME PERIOD, BUT SOME
QUESTIONS MAY ASK YOU TO LINK THE TIME PERIOD TO ANOTHER TIME
PERIOD
EX: REAGAN AND THE ELITE; CONNECT TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON
SHORT ANSWER STRATEGIES
 4 QUESTIONS = 45 MINUTES
 YOU MUST WRITE INSIDE THE BOX AND LABEL A, B, C.
 YOU MUST WRITE IN COMPLETE SENTENCES.
 EACH SECTION SHOULD TAKE 3-5 SENTENCES TO EXPLAIN = 9-15
SENTENCES FOR EACH SHORT ANSWER QUESTION.
 PROVIDE CAPITAL LETTER TERMS AS EVIDENCE.
 BE SURE TO READ INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.
IF IT SAYS TO FULLY EXPLAIN 1 EXAMPLE, ONLY PROVIDE 1 EXAMPLE.
DBQ STRATEGIES
 1 QUESTION =15 MINUTES TO PLAN & 45 MINUTES TO WRITE
 ANALYZE AND CATEGORIZE YOUR DOCUMENTS (PEECS); JOT DOWN
RELEVANT OUTSIDE CAPITAL LETTER TERMS THAT CONNECT TO EACH
DOCUMENT AS YOU ANALYZE
 THESIS MUST HAVE 3 SUBPOINTS (could be one counter, two support)
 MUST USE ALL (or all BUT 1 document) & PROVIDE SUFFICIENT OUTSIDE
INFORMATION
 FOR YOUR DOCUMENTS, USE HIPP STATEMENTS
Historical Context
Intended Audience
Purpose
Point of View
LONG ESSAY STRATEGIES
CHOOSE 1 QUESTION FROM A PAIR – 5 MINUTES TO PLAN &
30 TO WRITE
 THESIS MUST HAVE AT LEAST 2 SUBPOINTS
EACH PARAGRAPH SHOULD HAVE 3 – 4 CAPITAL LETTER
TERMS, TOTALING 6-8 FOR THE ESSAY
BE SURE TO CONNECT EACH PIECE OF EVIDENCE TO YOUR
THESIS
PRACTICE
Compare and contrast the prevailing attitudes
of the American people in the periods leading
up to the War of 1812 and the Spanish American
War.
How did the African American Civil Rights
movement of the 1950s and 1960s address the
failures of Reconstruction?
PRACTICE
Analyze the extent to which religious freedom
existed in the British North American colonies prior
to 1700.
Compare and contrast the prevailing attitudes of
the American people in the periods following
World War I and the World War II.
Short answer practice
 A) Briefly explain ONE of the parts of Henry Clay’s proposed
American System, as a comprehensive plan to bring about
economic improvement. Provide at least ONE piece of evidence to
support your explanation.
Protective tariffs
National Bank
Internal improvements
 B) Briefly explain how ONE of the parts of Henry Clay’s proposed
American System would bring about economic improvement.
Provide at least ONE piece of evidence to support your explanation.
 C) Identify and briefly explain the role played by ONE individual or
group that was critical of one of the parts or the entire plan for an
American System.
Short answer practice
 A) Choose ONE of the forces listed below, and explain how this best
demonstrates this statement: “The development of the territory west of the
Mississippi River during the period between 1820 and 1860 was driven by a
number of forces.”
 Nationalism
 New technology
 Population growth
 B) Contrast your choice against ONE of the other options, demonstrating
why that option is not as good as your choice.
 C) Briefly explain the role ONE of the following men played in this westward
development.
 Sam Houston
 Samuel F.B. Morse
 James Polk
DBQ practice
For the years 1880 to 1925, analyze both the
tensions surrounding the issue of immigration and
the United States government’s response to these
tensions.
Use the following documents and your knowledge
of the period from 1880 to 1925 to construct your
answer
Document A
Source: James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 1888
A certain part of this recent immigration is transitory. Italians and
Slovaks, for instance, after they have by thrift accumulated a sum
which is large for them, return to their native villages, and carry back
with them new notions and habits which set up a ferment among the
simple rustics of a Calabrian or North Hungarian Valley. For the United
States the practice has the double advantage of supplying a volume
of cheap unskilled labour when employment is brisk and of removing it
when employment becomes slack, so that the number of the
unemployed, often very large when a financial crisis has brought bad
times, is rapidly reduced, and there is more work for the permanently
settled part of the laboring class. It is the easier to go backwards and
forwards, because two thirds among all the races except the Jews,
are men, either unmarried youths or persons who have left their wives
behind.
Document B
Source: National People’s Party Platform, 1892, Expression of
Sentiments
Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting
American labor under the present system, which opens our
ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and
crowds out our wage-earners; and we denounce the present
ineffective laws against contract labor, and demand the
further restriction of undesirable emigration.
Document C
Source: Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,
1908
In order that the best results might follow from an
enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was
reached with Japan that the existing policy of discouraging
emigration of its subjects of the laboring classes to the
continental Unites States should continue, and should, by cooperation with the governments, be made as effective as
possible.
Document D
Source: Booker T. Washington, speech in Atlanta, Georgia, September
18, 1895
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South,
were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, “Cast
down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight
millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you
have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin
of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who
have without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your
forest, [built] your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from
the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent
representation of the progress of the South….
Don’t forget synthesis!!
- connect to another time period
- contradictory evidence
- extend or modify thesis
Part A Thesis:
States a thesis that directly addresses ALL parts of the question. The thesis must DO MORE than
restate the question.
Part B Document Support for Argument:
(a)
Offers plausible analysis of the content of a majority of the documents, explicitly using this analysis
to support the thesis or argument
AND
at least one of the following for the majority of the documents: Historical Context / Intended
Audience / Purpose / Point of View
AND
does ALL OF THE ABOVE on ALL or ALL BUT ONE of the documents.
Part B Outside Examples to Support Argument
(b)
Offers plausible analysis of historical examples beyond or outside the documents to support the
states thesis or a relevant argument.
Part C Contextualization:
Accurately and explicitly connects historical phenomena relevant to the argument to BROADER
historical events and/or processes.
Part D Synthesis:
Appropriately extends or modifies the stated thesis or argument
OR
recognizes and effectively accounts for disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from
primary sources and/or secondary works in crafting a coherent argument
OR
connects the topic of the question to other historical periods, geographical areas, contexts, or
circumstances.