AP Exam Review - May 10, 2024
Extra help....
Format of Exam
Exam Format
The AP U.S. History Exam has consistent question types, weighting, and scoring guidelines every year, so you and your students know what to expect on exam day.
Section I, Part A: Multiple Choice
55 Questions | 55 Minutes | 40% of Exam Score
- Questions usually appear in sets of 3–4 questions.
- Students analyze historical texts, interpretations, and evidence.
- Primary and secondary sources, images, graphs, and maps are included.
Section I, Part B: Short Answer
3 Questions | 40 Minutes | 20% of Exam Score
- Students analyze historians’ interpretations, historical sources, and propositions about history.
- Questions provide opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know best.
- Some questions include texts, images, graphs, or maps.
- Students choose between 2 options for the final required short-answer question, each one focusing on a different time period:
- Question 1 is required, includes 1–2 secondary sources, and focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1754 and 1980.
- Question 2 is required, includes 1 primary source, and focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1754 and 1980.
- Students choose between Question 3 (which focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1491 and 1877) and Question 4 (which focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1865 and 2001) for the last question. No sources are included for either Question 3 or Question 4.
Section II: Document-Based Question and Long Essay
2 questions | 1 Hour, 40 minutes | 40% of Exam Score
Document-Based Question (DBQ)
Recommended Time: 1 Hour (includes 15-minute reading period) | 25% of Exam Score
- Students are presented with 7 documents offering various perspectives on a historical development or process.
- Students assess these written, quantitative, or visual materials as historical evidence.
- Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.
- The document-based question focuses on topics from 1754 to 1980.
Long Essay
Recommended time: 40 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score
- Students explain and analyze significant issues in U.S. history.
- Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.
- The question choices focus on the same skills and the same reasoning process (e.g., comparison, causation, or continuity and change), but students choose from 3 options, each focusing on historical developments and processes from a different range of time periods—either 1491–1800 (option 1), 1800–1898 (option 2), or 1890–2001 (option 3).
Period Reviews
The content for the AP U.S. History exam is organized into nine periods. This isn’t strictly chronological, as you’ll notice some of the time periods overlap. Instead, the periodization has both chronological and thematic organization. Read on for an overview of the APUSH periods.
Period 1: 1491-1607 (5% of AP Questions)
This period is basically everything that happened prior to the arrival of the English. The start of the period, 1491 (the year before Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue”), is really shorthand for “before the Europeans showed up.” The end of the period is 1607, the year that the English landed in Jamestown, Virginia and founded the first permanent English settlement in the New World. In a nutshell, this period focuses on Native Americans and on early, non-English exploration of the New World, especially that of the Spanish.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Native American societies, especially the way they adapted to their environments
- Spanish exploration and the affect it had on native populations (e.g., disease, warfare, the encomienda system)
- The Columbian Exchange
Period 2: 1607-1754 (10%)
The next period is largely focused on European (including the British this time) exploration and settlement. The beginning date is the founding of Jamestown, as discussed above. The end date is the start of the French and Indian War, which totally changed the game in the British colonies.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Motivations for and patterns of immigration by the Spanish, English, Dutch, and French
- Interactions between Europeans and Native Americans
- Characteristics of the 13 British colonies (including regional distinctions between the Southern, Middle Atlantic, and New England colonies)
- Economic policies: mercantilism, the slave trade, salutary neglect
Period 3: 1754-1800 (12%)
Here we start to focus exclusively on the British colonies that will turn into the United States. The starting year, 1754, is the beginning of the French and Indian War. This marked the end of salutary neglect and the beginning of growing tensions between the colonies and Great Britain. The period takes you through the tumultuous revolution and its aftermath to the year 1800, in which the new democracy is solidified by its first official peaceful transfer of power between two political parties.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Britain’s attempt to tighten control on the colonies following the French and Indian War
- Building colonial resentment towards British policies (especially taxes)
- The Revolutionary War
- The Articles of Confederation (and the reasons for their failure)
- The Constitution (drafting, contents, and ratification debate)
- The Washington and Adams administrations, as well as the election of 1800
- Relations between the young U.S. and European powers, as well as Native Americans
Period 4: 1800-1848 (10%)
The U.S. was growing in territory and strength, but faced internal threats to its stability.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Evolution of political parties
- Westward expansion (including Louisiana Purchase)
- Growing sectionalism and tensions over the expansion of slavery (e.g., Missouri Compromise)
- Growth of the abolitionist and women’s rights movements
- Industrial Revolution and the growth of railroads
Period 5: 1844-1877 (13%)
Period 5 centers on the Civil War—its causes, events, and aftermath.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Westward expansion (Manifest Destiny, Mexican American War)
- Increased immigration (especially from Ireland and Asia) and the resulting tensions
- Growing tensions over slavery and states’ rights
- Civil War (major events, advantages/disadvantages of each side, outcome)
- Reconstruction
Period 6: 1865-1898 (13%)
This is the Gilded Age, where America was bright and shiny on the outside (industrial growth, wealth, railroads, big cities, population growth) and dark and grimy underneath (terrible working conditions, socioeconomic stratification, racism, political corruption).
The big concepts for this period are:
- Industrialization and the growth of big business (and all the good and bad that came with that)
- Migration: immigration and urbanization
- Racial tensions and segregation
Period 7: 1890-1945 (15%)
This period sees the United States starting to get pulled onto the world stage in a big way for the first time.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Progressive reforms
- Imperialism
- World War I
- The Great Depression (causes, effects, the New Deal)
- World War II
Period 8: 1945-1980 (15%)
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States emerged as one of two major world powers. The Cold War dominated foreign policy, while domestically, the U.S. went through many social changes.
The big concepts for this period are:
- Cold War
- Civil Rights Movement
- Increasing polarization of society between liberal and conservative ideologies
Period 9: 1980-Present (5%)
This is the modern, post-Cold War era.
The big concepts for this period are:
- End of the Cold War
- War on terrorism
- Technological development
- Environmental issues
Easy to Follow Period Breakdown
Political Parties throughout the US History
JB (great teacher) review webpage
Super long Kahoot to play
Videos
Each Period Review in 10 Min! - http://www.apushreview.com/new-ap-curriculum/period-reviews-in-10-minutes/
Video Review of every chapter from our textbook - http://www.apushreview.com/textbook-chapter-review-videos-2/chapter-review-videos-2/
Tom Richey 50 Videos (Watch a few on topics you need to brush up on) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfzs_X6OQBOy2rs4mrV2O9t3vNB4RF_Es
NBC has a great list of videos of short segments to better help understand specific topics.
Additional Help
Exam Tips - Writing - Multiple Choice
Rubrics for DBQ/LEQ
How to Write....
DBQ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEtpMq6ZXkE
The DBQ prompt https://drive.google.com/a/phm.k12.in.us/file/d/0B62BDwguC9o6MV9KZlNIdmQ1dzhLbnZ2SUlKamxlbjhacFNV/view?usp=sharing
Writing Tips - http://www.apushreview.com/additional-resources/ap-review-videos-by-topic/writing-tips/
Thesis Statement Recipe
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xmmBH4sWylYa6OaS1gQiPpAvNDUdhWlDZiyV4J6Afvc/
Score calculator https://www.albert.io/blog/ap-us-history-score-calculator/
Fun Review Games (Word Wall)
- British colonial regions (c/c sort) - https://wordwall.net/resource/15520683
- Road to Revolution chronology - https://wordwall.net/resource/15390805
- Mexican American War vs. Spanish American War sort - https://wordwall.net/resource/15519504
- Road to Civil War chronology - https://wordwall.net/resource/15476206
- WWI vs. WWII sort -https://wordwall.net/resource/15517987
- Cold War events chronology - https://wordwall.net/resource/15521911
- Presidents (sort by era) - https://wordwall.net/resource/15624407
Class work - Period Reviews
Period 1
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EKZjBolxvi-w1YD2cRookVM-BVnObVfGzghUCO2coYM/edit
Period 2 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DkTBQmVHXqS6WCUZnw06EoBr9R22DgVM1l3rRSAm9fs/edit?ts=5aec7089
Period 3
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ODRn8ORge6K52Zx8r-vZQbzdZ7-8KhyLZbyC-ZSBPCI/edit?usp=sharing
Period 4
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u9L5mj2dSPKPs-mggmbIoMfIXaoYrQ5uXs3oOq05Mcw/edit?usp=sharing
Period 5
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15yuw4ekaI19-2ozj0rzzIKZykIqZyTUh5PtT3cItuy0/edit#
Period 6 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l19mVaUvAoX4wi4WyB5L1fhdBuepQoZaIBXm1xifIX4/edit?usp=sharing
Period 7
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rwLcHwp5s6Z8-7Qriq_UCZA7OYAKdfUD20OkRG6P2Fs/edit?usp=sharing
Period 8
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GMbBpG4aj4A_bGpbk-HKDqNKlraONQxxNSldCBI_l0Q/edit#
Period 9
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Ql7DFQdhJ8-KhopSz_aNO2mu-ncNQYSZZaQAkO_b74/edit