1. Section I - Part A: Multiple Choice | 50-55 Questions | 55 Minutes | 40% of Exam Score
Questions appear in sets of 2-5.
Students analyze historical texts, interpretations, and evidence.
Primary and secondary sources, images, graphs, and maps are included.
Section I - Part B: Short Answer | 4 Questions | 45 Minutes | 20% of Exam Score
Questions provide opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know best.
Some questions include texts, images, graphs, or maps.
Section II - Part A: Document Based | 1 Question | 60 Minutes | 25% of Exam Score
Analyze and synthesize historical data.
Assess written, quantitative, or visual materials as historical evidence.
Section II - Part B: Long Essay | 1 Question | 35 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score
Students select one question among two.
Explain and analyze significant issues in U.S. history.
Develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.

2. Skill Type
Historical Thinking Skill
I. Chronological Reasoning
1. Historical Causation
2. Patterns of Continuity and Change over Time
3. Periodization
II. Comparison and Contextualization
4. Comparison
5. Contextualization
III. Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence
6. Historical Argumentation
7. Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
IV. Historical Interpretation and Synthesis
8. Interpretation
9. Synthesis

3. Themes Identity Work, exchange, and technology Peopling
Politics and power
America in the world
Environment and geography — physical and human
Ideas, beliefs, and culture

4. Period Date Range Approximate Percentage of … AP Exam
– %
–1754
–1800
–1848
– %
–1898
–1945
– %
–present 5%

5. PERIOD 1: 1491–1607
On a North American continent controlled by American Indians, contact among the peoples of Europe, the Americas, and West Africa created a new world.

6. PERIOD 2: 1607–1754
Europeans and American Indians maneuvered and fought for dominance, control, and security in North America, and distinctive colonial and native societies emerged.

7. Recent DBQ Topics 1999: Pre-Revolution Identity
2000: Labor Unions
2001: Ike and Cold War Fears
2002: Antebellum Reform (B: Era of Good Feelings
2003:New Deal (B: Progressive Reform
2004: French and Indian War (B: Interwar Foreign Policy
2005: AR Revolutionary? (B: Causes Civil War
2006: Women Post-AR (B: Begin Cold War
2007: Farmers 19th (B: Johnson and Great Society
2008: Vietnam (B: Immigration
2009: Revolutionary + EAR Slavery (B: Blacks +CW+RR
2010: Puritanism (B: Antebellum Western Expansion
2011: Nixon (B: Antebellum politics
2012: Post-CW rise of Corporations
2013: Anti-slavery

8. Analyze the cultural and economic responses of TWO of the following groups to the Indians of North America before 1750.
British French Spanish (00)
Compare the ways in which 2 of the following reflected tensions in colonial society:
Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
Pueblo Revolt (1680)
Salem witchcraft trials (1692)
Stono Rebellion (1739) (03B)

9. Compare and contrast the ways in which economic development affected politics in Massachusetts and Virginia in the period from 1607 to (2006)
Compare the ways in which religion shaped the development of colonial society (to 1740) in TWO of the following regions:
New England
Chesapeake
Middle Atlantic (2002)

10. Evaluate the relative importance of the following as factors prompting Americans to rebel in 1776:
Parliamentary taxation
British military measures
Restriction of civil liberties
The legacy of colonial religious and political ideas
(1992)
To what extent had the colonists developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans by the eve of the Revolution. (1999 DBQ: )

11. Evaluate the extent to which the Articles of Confederation were effective in solving the problems that confronted the new nation (2003)
Although the power of the national government increased during the Early Republic, this development often faced serious opposition. Compare the motives and effectiveness of those opposed to the growing power of the national government in TWO of the following:
Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions,
Hartford Convention,
Nullification Crisis,
(2003B)

12. Historians have traditionally labeled the period after the War of 1812 the “Era of Good Feelings.” Evaluate the accuracy of this label, considering the emergence of nationalism and sectionalism. (02)
“Reform movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals.” Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to the years (2002)

13. In what ways did developments in transportation bring about economic and social change in the United States in the period 1820 to 1860? (2003)
In what ways and to what extent was industrial development from 1800 to 1860 a factor in the relationship between the northern and southern states? (2006B)