APUSH

Advanced Placement United States History Exam

Know Your Enemy…

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WHY AM I DOING THIS?!?!?

I’m crazy!

I’m the one in the family everyone talks about.

Why not melt my brain!

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Actually, there are three really good reasons why you are doing this to yourself:

REASON 1

- if you pass the College Board AP US History exam in May, you will gain college credits based on your score for all CSUs and UCs and most universities you may plan on attending.

REASON 2

- You will receive an extra point on your grade point average.

REASON 3

- The experience of having pushed yourself harder academically than you have ever done before.

Know Your Enemy: The Test A few statistics about the APUSH EXAM

 Of the 37 Advanced Placement tests given by the College Board, the APUSH has the lowest average pass rate – about 52% nationwide.  The test is divided into two equally weighted parts: •

Section I

is 80 multiple choice questions of varying difficulty that cover the whole range of the curriculum; you will have 50 minutes to complete this section which represents 50% of your overall score on the test.

•

Section II

is the writing component which is broken down into three sections labeled Parts A, B, and C. The three parts are one DBQ and two FRQs and all three together represent the other 50% of your overall score on the test.

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Know Your Enemy: Essays The DBQ is worth 45% of Section II, while the two FRQs are worth 55% - which means that each one is worth 27.5%:

A:

The DBQ or Document Based Question is the most difficult of the three; you will be given an essay prompt along with several documents that you will have to incorporate into your final essay. • You will have 60 minutes total to complete the DBQ, but you must spend the first 15 minutes reading all of the documents, making notes, drawing up an outline, doing all of your reading and prewriting – do not skip doing this or you will blow the essay!

•

B:

The first Free Response Question, FRQ 1, will be two prompts that you will choose from: clearly, you need to pick the one you know best. There will be no documents to read, so all of your information must come out of your head. You get 35 minutes to complete FRQ 1, so spend 5 minutes making notes and outlining your argument – as with the DBQ, do not skip doing your prewriting or you run the risk of blowing this essay!

C:

The second Free Response Question, FRQ 2, is two more prompts from which you will pick the one you know best. Again, spend 5 minutes doing your prewriting and make every word, every sentence count!

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What are the Scores?

AP test scores range from 5 (highest) to 1 (lowest). Colleges and universities use these grades as evidence of the student’s mastery of the material and potential to succeed academically at the university level.

Clearly, the higher you score – which is a function of how much preparation you made – the easier time the college or university counselor will have in deciding whether or not to grant you credit and/or advanced placement in college.

• • • • • 5 4 3 2 1 Extremely well qualified Well qualified Qualified Possibly qualified No recommendation NOT PASSING

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The Multiple Choice Section

– – – The multiple choice questions cover the full curriculum in APUSH, however, the majority of them are on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (1800s & 1900s): 17% - European exploration - Washington's first term (1789) 50% - Washington's first term (1790) - U.S. entering World War I (1914) 33% - U.S. entering World War I (1914) – Present – The AP test covers the following topics in American history: 35% - politics, government, and laws – 35% - social movements and social change – 15% - wars, treaties, and international affairs – 10% - economic history and technology – 5% - art and culture The difficulty of the multiple-choice section is deliberately set at such a level that a student has to correctly answer about 60 percent of the questions to receive a qualifying score, i.e., a score of 3 The questions are

not

in chronological order, rather they are in order of difficulty, getting more difficult as you move further into the test.

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Deciphering the DBQ

• The D.B.Q. consists of a statement and a time period: "To what extent did the status of Blacks in America change during the period from 1940-1980?" • Sometimes the question will include subtopics, as in, "To what extent did the social, political, and economic status of Blacks in America change during the period from 1940-1980?" • If the question includes subtopics, you must write about those subtopics in your answer. • Sometimes the question will not be a question at all, but rather a statement which you are asked to agree or disagree with: "The status of Blacks in America changed radically during the period from 1940-1980. Use the documents and your knowledge of the time period to assess the validity of the statement.” The question always calls for an opinion answer, so there is no right or wrong answer. The amount of points you get will depend upon how well you support your answer with the documents and with your own knowledge – but not your “cleverness” in writing = no bullsh-t.

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Deciphering the DBQ

• • There are generally nine documents following the question, all of which date from the time period of the question. You do not have to use all of them, but you do need to at least use a majority of them.

What is a majority? The general rule of thumb is 4 + 1. The key, though, is to use a few VERY WELL than a lot of them POORLY.

Most of the documents are short, written excerpts, about 1-3 paragraphs in length. They may be parts of laws, court case rulings, official declarations, presidential addresses, editorials, speeches, books, or personal letters. • However, not all of the documents will be written excerpts; generally a D.B.Q. will include at least one or two political cartoons, pictures, charts, graphs, or maps.

THESE DOCUMENTS WILL NOT BE ONES YOU HAVE SEEN BEFORE.

You will learn a strict format for writing an answer to a DBQ questions. This is the meat and potatoes of Section II. If you do not do well on this you will not pass section II and not pass the test.

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Doing the FRQ

• There are four FRQ questions, numbered 2 through 5. You must answer two of the four questions (2 or 3 and 4 or 5). This section of the test is 70 minutes long; it is recommended that you spend 5 minutes planning and 30 minutes writing each essay.

The two essay questions in each pair ask about different time periods and cover different aspects of history. Some of the questions may give you a choice of subtopics. For example: 2. Explain the reasons for the U.S. entering World War I.

3. Explain the effects of the following on the growth of industry in the 1820s and 1830s (pick two): • The War of 1812 • The Era of Good Feelings • Improvements in technology • Increased immigration As with the DBQ, the graders are looking for a thoughtful , well structured, and historically accurate response that demonstrates an informed historical understanding – details and reasoning are critical!

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How to Succeed

APUSH is a long, arduous, unforgiving pursuit of an elusive prey – one that will turn on you and kill you if you are not careful! So BE PREPARED!

• Writing: YOU CANNOT PASS WITHOUT WRITING ON YOUR OWN!

The writing on the APUSH Exam is NOTHING LIKE what you had to do for the APWorld History Exam – forget everything you had to learn about formatting for it because now it is a totally different game!

• • Reading: YOU CANNOT PASS WITHOUT READING ON YOUR OWN!

You must read every chapter ahead of time and take notes as you read – do not rely on your memory, TAKE NOTES!

You must read because not all the information you need to know will be covered in the lectures and discussions. • Study: YOU CANNOT PASS WITHOUT STUDYING ON YOUR OWN!

You must study on a daily basis, at least an hour a night, reviewing your reading notes, reviewing discussion and lecture notes, making and reviewing vocabulary and identifications.

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MAXIMUM POINTS = 5,000

SEMESTER 1 = 2,500 pts SEMESTER 2 = 2,500 pts  Summer Reading (300)  3 Wiki Summaries x 100 pts each Summer Reading Follow-Up (300)  3 Surveys x 100 pts each Blogs (260)  13 entries at 20 pts each Projects (300)  3 Unit Projects at 100 pts each Vlogs (150)  3 Unit Vlogs at 50 pts each Literature Connection (100)  History/Literature Timeline Semester Exam (280)  Chapters 1 - 22 Unit Exams (540)  3 Exams x 180 pts each        Final Project (300)  AP Survival Video Essay Summer Reading Follow-Up (300)  3 Surveys x 100 pts each Blogs (260)  13 entries at 20 pts each Projects (300)  3 Unit Projects at 100 pts each Vlogs (150)  3 Unit Vlogs at 50 pts each Literature Connection (100)  History/Literature Timeline Semester Exam (280)  Chapters 23 - 43 Unit Exams (540)  3 Exams x 180 pts each

YOUR GRADE

2,500 – 2,375 = 5 = A+ 2,374 – 2,250 = 4 = A 2,249 – 2,125 = 4 = A 2,124 – 2,000 = 3 = B+ 1,999 – 1,750 = 3 = B 1,749 – 1,625 = 3 = B 1,624 – 1,500 = 2 = C+ 1,499 – 1,375 = 2 = C 1,374 – 1,250 = 2/1 = C 1,249 – 0 = 1 = Incomplete

GOOD LUCK!

APUSH

Advanced Placement United States History Exam

Know Your Enemy…