AP United States History

This article is part of the Advanced Placement series.
General exam structure • Awards
Current subjects:
Art History Biology Calculus (AB & BC) Chemistry Chinese Language and Culture Comparative Government & Politics Computer Science A Computer Science Principles English Language & Composition English Literature & Composition Environmental Science European History French Language and Culture German Language and Culture Human Geography Italian Language and Culture Japanese Language and Culture Latin Macroeconomics Microeconomics Music Theory Physics 1: Algebra-based Physics 2: Algebra-based Physics C: Mechanics Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Psychology Research (Second part of AP Capstone program) Seminar (First part of AP Capstone program) Spanish Language and Culture Spanish Literature and Culture Statistics Studio Art (2-D, 3-D, & Drawing) U.S. History U.S. Government & Politics World History
In development:
Russian Language and Culture
Former subjects:
Computer Science AB French Literature German Literature Latin: Vergil Latin Literature Physics B

Advanced Placement United States History (also known as AP U.S. History or APUSH) is a course and examination offered by College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program.

Curriculum

The AP U.S. History course is designed to provide the same level of content and instruction that students would face in a freshman-level college survey class. AP U.S. History classes generally use a college-level textbook as the foundation for the course.

Textbooks

Commonly used textbooks that meet the curriculum requirements^[1] include:

America's History (Henretta et al.)
American History: A Survey (Brinkley)
American Passages (Ayers et al.)
The American Pageant (Bailey et al.)
The American People (Nash et al.)
By the People (Fraser)
The Enduring Vision (Boyer et al.)
Give Me Liberty! (Foner)
Liberty, Equality, Power (Murrin et al.)
Out of Many (Faragher et al.)
A People and a Nation (Norton et al.)

Conservative Criticism

American conservatives have criticized the curriculum for downplaying American exceptionalism and failing to foster patriotism. In 2014, there were protests against it in the Jefferson County Public Schools district in Colorado. In 2015, a bill to replace the curriculum was passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives’ Education Committee, but later withdrawn.^[2]^[3]

Exam

The AP U.S. History exam lasts 3 hours and 15 minutes and consists of two sections; additionally, each section is divided into two parts. Section I, part A includes 55 multiple choice questions with each question containing four choices. The multiple choice questions cover American History from just before European contact with Native Americans to the present day. Moreover, section I, part B includes four short-answer questions. In total, students are given 105 minutes (55 for the multiple choice section and 50 for the four short-answer questions) to complete section I.

Section II of the exam is the free-response section, in which examinees write two essays. Section II, part A, is a document-based question (DBQ), which provides an essay prompt and seven short primary sources or excerpts related to the prompt. Students are expected to write an essay responding to the prompt in which they utilize the sources in addition to outside information. Section II, part B, provides two thematic essay prompts. Students must respond to only one of the two essay prompts.

Each thematic essay question on the AP exam may address any one of four possible historical thinking skills: patterns of continuity and change over time, comparison, causation, or periodization. Both of the essay questions will address the same historical thinking skill. In addition, neither essay's time frame will be exclusively before 1607 (the founding of Jamestown) or after 1980 (President Reagan's election). There is a mandatory fifteen-minute reading period for students to read the essay prompts, take notes, and brainstorm; they may not begin to write the essays until this period has ended. Students will then have 90 minutes to write the two essays; 55 minutes are recommended for the DBQ and 35 minutes for the thematic essay, but students are free to work on the two essays as they see fit.^[4]

In May 2011, the AP U.S. History Test was taken by 402,947 students worldwide,^[5] making it second in terms of number of examinees, behind the AP English Language and Composition exam.^[6]

Scoring

The AP U.S. History exam is divided into two sections. Section one consists of the multiple choice and short answer questions, while section two consists of the document-based question (DBQ) and a long essay question. Section one is worth 60% of the total AP exam score, with 40% of the total exam score derived from the student's performance on the multiple choice section and 20% of the total exam score derived from the student's performance on the short answer questions. The remaining 40% of the total exam score is derived from section two; the document-based question is worth 25% of the total exam score, while the long essay question is worth 15% of the total exam score.^[4]

Grade distribution

The score distributions since 2007 were:

Score	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015^[7]	2016^[8]	2017^[9]
5	11.1%	8.5%	11.0%	11.0%	11.0%	11.8%	10.6%	11.0%	9.3%	11.7%	10.9%
4	19.9%	18.2%	19.3%	18.8%	20.8%	21.4%	21.5%	21.3%	17.8%	17.9%	17.9%
3	22.2%	21.4%	22.1%	22.9%	21.0%	21.7%	21.8%	20.1%	23.6%	22.5%	22.6%
2	26.2%	25.4%	25.2%	25.9%	26.7%	26.5%	27.2%	28.0%	25.0%	23.4%	23.5%
1	20.6%	26.5%	22.2%	21.4%	20.5%	18.6%	18.9%	19.6%	24.3%	24.5%	25.1%
Mean	2.75	2.57	2.72	2.72	2.75	2.81	2.77	2.76	2.63	2.69
Number of Students	333,562	346,641	360,173	387,416	406,086	427,796	442,890	462,766	469,689	489,281

Composite score range

The College Board has released information on the composite score range (out of 180) required to obtain each grade:^[10]^[11]

Final Score	Range (1996)	Range (2001)	Range (2002)	Range (2006)
5	117-180	114-180	115-180	106-180
4	96-116	92-113	94-114	85-105
3	79-95	74-91	76-93	68-84
2	42-73	46-75	47-67	47-67
1	0-50	0-41	0-45	0-46

Note: The above composite score cut points reflect the pre-2011 grading formula which deducted 0.25 points for every incorrect multiple choice answer.

References

↑ "AP United States History: Example Textbook List". CollegeBoard. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
↑ Lerner, Adam B. (21 February 2015). "AP U.S. History controversy becomes a debate on America -". Politico. Politico. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
↑ "Oklahoma Board of Education targets US History course for being "negative"".
1 2 "AP US History: Course and Exam Description" (PDF). CollegeBoard. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
↑ "AP United States History Student Score Distributions Global AP Exams - May 2011" (PDF). 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
↑ "AP Data – Archived Data 2011". Retrieved 9 May 2016.
↑ Total Registration. "2015 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 9 May 2016.
↑ Registration, Total. "2016 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2016-07-01.
↑ Total Registration. "2017 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
↑ "AP Central". 1 May 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
↑ AP: The Grade-Setting Process. Retrieved 9 May 2008.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.