Whether or not you’ve decided that you want to embark upon the AP® US History review process and take the APUSH course, you’ve probably already asked yourself this question,“Is AP® US History Hard?”
We’re just going to be honest and upfront here. The answer is yes. APUSH difficulty ranks up there as one of the hardest AP® courses and exams. But don’t let this information turn you off from taking the course or exam. Once you get to know how and why the APUSH course and exam are so difficult, you can use that information to your advantage and work towards earning that 5 when it comes to exam day.
We will outline the details that make the APUSH exam so difficult, the high expectations that come with being an APUSH student, and advice on how to move forward in the AP® US History review process.
Let’s get started!
By the Numbers
APUSH difficulty is no laughing matter. This may come as a little bit of a surprise, but AP® US History is one of the most difficult AP® exams you can take. Many AP® students assume that exams like AP® Chem or even AP® Calculus BC are the hardest to score a 5, or even get a 3, but when you take a look at the APUSH score distributions from recent exams, you’ll see how difficult the exam can be.
Let’s take a look at these numbers:
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | |
5 | 11.0% | 11.0% | 11.8% | 10.6% | 11.0% | 9.3% |
4 | 18.8% | 20.8% | 21.4% | 21.5% | 21.3% | 17.8% |
3 | 22.9% | 21.0% | 21.7% | 21.8% | 20.1% | 23.6% |
2 | 25.9% | 26.7% | 26.5% | 27.2% | 28.0% | 25.0% |
1 | 21.4% | 20.5% | 18.6% | 18.9% | 19.6% | 24.3% |
Those are the grade distributions for the years 2010 through 2015. As you can see, only 9.3 percent of people earned a five in the year 2015, while 24.1 percent of the APUSH test takers received a score of 1 on the exam for the same year. The mean score for all the years mentioned above comes to 2.74.
In other words, AP® US History difficulty ranks up there among the lowest grade distributions among all the AP® course listings. However, these numbers do not mean that scoring a 5 on the exam is impossible.
At this point in your AP® student career, you probably don’t know the exact years of the Vietnam War yet. That’s OK. Once you get a solid understanding of how the APUSH exam works and you start using some AP® US History study guides to your advantage, you can begin learning the details of important US history events like the Vietnam War and use those details to your advantage when it comes to test day.
But first, let’s take a look at what makes the APUSH difficulty rank so high among the other AP® courses.
Why is AP® US History Difficult?
Try not to be scared off by these numbers. We know that they can seem a little daunting at first, but when you fully understand what makes the AP® US History review process so difficult, you can begin to use that information to your advantage and study accordingly.
There are a few reasons that AP® US History difficulty ranks so high. First, there is a ton of information. In terms of time periodization, the course covers (generally speaking) the years 1491 to the present moment. But even this is a little iffy since you’ll have to know and understand quite a bit of historical context that explains Europe’s explosive contact with the New World in 1492.
The CollegeBoard has split the APUSH course into 9 primary time periods:
• Period 1: 1491 to 1607
• Period 2: 1607 to 1754
• Period 3: 1754 to 1800
• Period 4: 1800 to 1848
• Period 5: 1844 to 1877
• Period 6: 1865 to 1898
• Period 7: 1890 to 1945
• Period 8: 1945 to 1980
• Period 9: 1980 to the Present
Those are a lot of dates and numbers to keep circulating in your head as you go through the APUSH review process. To make matters more complicated, the AP® US History course and exam are about so much more than dates and names. The CollegeBoard describes APUSH in these terms in the College Board’s AP® US History Course Overview:
The AP® US History course focuses on the development of historical thinking skills (chronological reasoning, comparing and contextualizing, crafting historical arguments using historical evidence, and interpreting and synthesizing historical narrative) and the development of students’ abilities to think conceptually about US history from approximately 1491 to the present. Seven themes of equal importance—American and National identity; Migration and Settlement; Politics and Power; Work, Exchange, and Technology; America in the World; Geography and the Environment; and Culture and Society—provide areas of historical inquiry for investigation throughout the course. These require students to reason historically about continuity and change over time and make comparisons among various historical development in different times and places. The course also allows teachers flexibility across nine different periods of US history to teach topics of their choice in depth.
Whew. Did you get all of that? This description is really just a long and drawn out way of telling potential APUSH students that there’s quite a bit of information that goes into AP® US History reviews. APUSH is about so much more than dates and names. Mere memorization will not get you that 5 you want on the exam.
But don’t let this convince you that you are off the hook when it comes to memorization. You will be doing that with every AP® US History study guide you work on. It’s just that you’ll need to think critically and deeply about each topic on top of memorizing the important details of crucial dates and events.
When it comes to a major event in US History, theme, context, and detail must be considered. Take a look at the Nullification Crisis, for example. AP® US History students must recognize that this event was more than just an argument between Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun. It represented the social, economic, and political rifts between the North and South that led up to the Civil War. On top of that, major questions concerning federal vs. state power were being brought to light when the country was very young.
There’s so much more to understand about a conflict such as the Nullification Crisis, but our point here is that an APUSH study guide will give you more than a list of details you need to memorize.
Speaking of more than just dates and names, there is another aspect of the AP® US History exam that can be quite the handful. Even mentioning the letters DBQ can trigger a minor heart attack in the most strong-willed APUSH student. DBQ stands for Document Based Question and is arguably the most difficult component of the APUSH exam. The DBQ is in the essay-writing section of the exam, where students are expected to write a clear and concise essay that revolves around ten to twelve primary-source documents.
The point of the DBQ is for you to show that you understand the complexities of the historical narrative being discussed. That means structure and argumentation matter nearly as much as the evidence you use. This is no easy task.
Despite the difficulty that comes with doing an APUSH DBQ, they are manageable with a little bit of studying and prep work. One of the first steps to owning the DBQ is to understand how the DBQ and the APUS exam are structured.
Exam Structure
Here is how the exam breaks down:
• Section I — Part A: Multiple Choice — 55 questions; 55 minutes
• Section I — Part B: Short-Answer Questions — 4 questions; 50 minutes
• Section II — Part A: Document-Based Question — 1 question; 55 minutes (includes a reading period with a suggested time of 15 minutes)
• Section II — Part B: Long Essay Question — 1 question (chosen from a pair); 35 minutes
If you haven’t already done so, look through the AP® US History Course Overviewand the AP® US History Course and Exam Description. These documents lay out everything that you need to know about both the APUSH course and the APUSH exam. One top of that, they also contain example questions that mimic those from the actual APUSH exam, letting you familiarize yourself with how the questions will be phrased and presented.
There are two primary parts of the AP® US History exam: the multiple-choice/short-answer section and the DBQ/long essay section.
The multiple-choice section consists of 55 questions where you will be expected to examine excerpts from various historical works and answer corresponding questions regarding the piece. These are going to be stimulus based and may come from either primary or secondary sources. The point of using both of these types of documents is to test whether or not the student has understood both the events of the past and how historians themselves have interpreted those events. You will be given just under one hour (55 minutes) to complete this portion.
Then comes the short-answer section. Unlike the DBQ or the long essay, these short-answer questions do not require a thesis. The expectation, however, is for you to understand the topic at hand. You may be asked a question or two about a primary-source document or you could be asked to explain the reason a certain event occurred.
Here’s an example question for the short-answer section of the exam:
Answer a, b, and c.
a) Briefly explain ONE example of how contact between Native Americans and Europeans brought changes to Native American societies in the period 1492 to 1700.
b) Briefly explain a Second example of how contact between Native Americans and Europeans brought changes to Native American societies in the same period.
c) Briefly explain ONE example of how Native American societies resisted change brought by contact with Europeans in the same period.
The questions vary, which means you have to study hard for this section of the exam.
Like we stated above, the DBQ stands for Document-Based Question and is arguably the most difficult part of the APUSH Exam. The DBQ consists of a question, a set of primary source documents (never more than 7), and only 55 minutes to come up with a well written, clear and coherent essay response. The essay that you create is going to center around primary-source documents that range between photographs, song lyrics, letters, newspaper articles, legal cases, etc.
But the answer you provide is going to have to be in a concise essay format with a thesis that covers nearly every single document and shows that you understand the complexities of the historical narrative provided. That means structure and argumentation matter nearly as much as the evidence you use.
After the student lets out a big sigh of relief and pats themselves on the back for completing the DBQ section, they will move on to the Long Essay portion of the APUSH exam. Critical thinking and historical analysis are important in these, all while the evidence you choose to use is mostly up to you. Like the DBQ, organization and argumentation are essential if you want to score overall on the APUSH exam. You’ll definitely want to practice these in your APUSH reviews and studies. Here’s an example Long Essay question:
“Some historians have argued that the New Deal was ultimately conservative in nature. Support, modify, or refute this interpretation, providing specific evidence to justify your answer.”
Content
As you can see from reading through the breakdown of the APUSH exam, those interested in taking the APUSH course and exam will have to think deeply about a variety of topics and themes in their AP® US History review time.
It goes without saying that students need to be aware of the major events in world history. Remembering key dates and names will be essential. For example, you want to know that the Twin-Towers Attacks occurred on September 11, 2001. But that’s not enough to score a 5 on the exam. Contextualization, historical thinking, critical analysis, and argumentation are all central components of the AP® US History course.
The CollegeBoard has laid out nine critical skills that they want every APUSH student to learn throughout their studies:
1. Analyzing evidence: content and sourcing
2. Interpretation
3. Comparison
4. Contextualization
5. Synthesis
6. Causation
7. Patterns of continuity and change over time
8. Periodization
9. Argumentation
And to make things even more complicated, there are seven core themes that need to be considered as a student of AP® US History. These include
1. American and National identity
2. Migration and Settlement
3. Politics and Power
4. Work, Exchange, and Technology
5. America in the World
6. Geography and the Environment
7. Culture and Society
In other words, the expectations are high here. Nearly every single person, place, or event that you learn about will have to be put into an appropriate context, seen alongside a variety of core themes, and be scrutinized almost as if a professional historian was studying the topic.
These are the reasons that AP® US History difficulty ranks so high among the other AP® exams. There is simply a ton of content to go through.
Skills Required
One of the best things about the APUSH history exam is that there are no real requirements to taking it. Unlike AP® Chem, there are no lab requirements. You don’t even have to be all that great of a historian (as long as you are willing to learn).
Specifically, the CollegeBoard offers AP® US History to any student who is willing. Just make sure that you bring with you a strong interest in learning US history, the will to sharpen those critical-thinking skills, and your favorite note taking device to class with you because there will be some serious learning taking place.
You will be expected to think deeply about the past. Your ability to memorize dates and names is less relevant than your ability to critically analyze the events that you are studying. You will be expected to read through countless primary-source documents and extract core themes from those documents, put them into their appropriate historical context, and create unique historical narratives around your findings.
On top of that, the AP® US History Course and Exam Descriptionexplains that AP® US History should
• Provide you with the thinking skills and enduring understandings necessary to deal critically with the main issues and documents of U.S. history
• Prepare you for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands upon you equivalent to those made by full-year introductory college courses
• Enable you to assess historical sources — their relevance to a given interpretive problem, their reliability, and their importance — and to weigh the evidence and interpretations of the past presented in historical scholarship
• Develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment and to present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in an essay format
• Train you to analyze and interpret primary sources, including documentary materials, maps, statistical tables, and pictorial and graphic evidence of historical events
• Teach you to take notes from both printed materials and lectures or discussions, to write essay examinations, and to write analytical and research papers
• Enable you to express yourself with clarity and precision and know how to cite sources and credit the phrases and ideas of others
This may seem like quite a bit at this point in your APUSH review process, but don’t let any of this stuff scare you away because the skills that you develop from successfully taking and completing this course will serve you well throughout your academic career.
Is AP® US History Worth It?
We were honest with you when it came to discussing AP® US History difficulty, so let us be honest with you when it comes to deciding whether or not the APUSH course and exam are worth taking.
Yes, APUSH is totally worth all of the hard work and skill development that comes with it. There are a couple of solid reasons to put APUSH high on your list.
First, APUSH will come in handy throughout the rest of your high school and college career. Everything you learn in this course will help you out in the long run. Every single one of those skills that the CollegeBoard has laid out for the APUSH student is useful for nearly every other class that you will have to take. All of that historical thinking and critical analysis will come into place in a variety of contexts. You will have to take data, put it into context, and create and individual interpretation of that information whether you are studying to become a biologist or US history teacher.
Another excellent reason to take AP® US History is that it will strengthen those writing and argumentation skills. APUSH students walk away with a much sharper sense of how to create, organize, and thoughtfully execute an argumentative essay. In the end, you will become a better writer and excellent writing skills are sought after all in every college campus and in most job places.
Just in the nature of studying the past, you will also begin to understand the present. You will better understand what it means to be an American citizen and you will have a deeper understanding of how we got into the political, social, and economic situations that we currently live in.
Perhaps even more important to your average student, as with any AP® course, passing the AP® US History exam will save you money. Colleges are not getting any cheaper and if you can find a way to work off some of your courses without breaking the bank, you should do it. APUSH really is a hard exam, but it is definitely a worthwhile venture.
Next Steps
If you are interested in taking the APUSH course and exam, why not get started on the prep work now? Take a look at some of the textbooks that are out there. The CollegeBoard has put out a list of commonly used APUSH textbooks. Or you can take a look at some of the excellent APUSH review books that are available at nearly every bookstore.
Once you’ve decided that you want to take the exam, the best thing to do is ask your school about taking the AP® US History course. Make sure that you’ve met all of the requirements that your school has set into place. Every school’s requirements are different so don’t assume that you automatically qualify to take the course.
If your school does not officially offer an AP® US History class, you may be able to work with administrators and history teachers for an independent study course. Some schools and teachers will work with you even if you are taking a normal US history course at your high school. They can provide you with the information you need and prompt you to think at the level of the other APUSH offerings out there.
Or you could do all of the legwork on your own and take the APUSH exam after doing your own studying and APUSH review sessions. If you choose this route, work with an excellent AP® US History study guide likeAlbert.io and stick to a solid study schedule.
It is true that the APUSH exam is a tough one. However, it is not impossible. You’ll need to work on those reading, analytical, and composition skills all while dedicating some serious study time. But those skills that you learn will pay off and get you that much closer to scoring a 5 on the exam.
What do you think, is AP® US History difficult? Let us know about your experiences with the whole APUSH review process and what has worked and not worked out for you.
Looking forAP® US History practice?
Kickstartyour AP® US History prepwith Albert. Start your AP® exam prep today.
