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 co operation 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 (a) Document Support for Argument:

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 (b) Part C Outside Examples to Support Argument

Offers plausible analysis of historical examples beyond or outside the documents to support the states thesis or a relevant argument. 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.