Overview:
AP U.S. History is designed to be the equivalent of a two-semester introductory college or university U.S. history course. In AP U.S. History students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in nine historical periods from approximately 1491 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills, practices, and methods employed by historians: analyzing primary and secondary sources; developing historical arguments; making historical comparisons; and utilizing reasoning about contextualization, causation, and continuity and change over time. The course also provides seven themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: 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.
Prerequisites:
There are no prerequisites for AP U.S. History. Students should be able to read a college-level textbook and write grammatically correct, complete sentences.
AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills
The AP history courses seek to apprentice students to the practice of history by emphasizing the development of disciplinary practices and reasoning skills while learning historical content. The practices and skills that students should develop in all AP history courses are listed below, along with a condensed description of what students should be able to do with each. Every AP Exam question will assess one or more of these practices and skills.
Disciplinary Practices:
1. Analyzing Historical Evidence
-Primary Sources
Explain the relative historical significance of a source's point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience.
Evaluate a source's credibility and limitations.
-Secondary Sources
Explain how a historian's claim/argument is supported with evidence.
Analyze patterns and trends in quantitative date in non-text-based sources.
Evaluate the effectiveness of a historical claim/argument.
2. Argument Development
-Make a historically defensible claim in the form of an evaluative thesis.
-Support an argument using specific and relevant evidence.
-Use historical reasoning to explain relationships among pieces of historical evidence.
-Consider ways that diverse/alternative evidence could be used to qualify/modify an argument.
APUSH Reasoning Skills
Skill 1: Contextualization
Skill 2: Comparison
Skill 3: Causation
Skill 4: Continuity and Change over Time
Layout of Test:
Section 1 Part A: Multiple Choice-55 Questions-55 Minutes-40% of Exam Score
AP U.S. History is designed to be the equivalent of a two-semester introductory college or university U.S. history course. In AP U.S. History students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in nine historical periods from approximately 1491 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills, practices, and methods employed by historians: analyzing primary and secondary sources; developing historical arguments; making historical comparisons; and utilizing reasoning about contextualization, causation, and continuity and change over time. The course also provides seven themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: 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.
Prerequisites:
There are no prerequisites for AP U.S. History. Students should be able to read a college-level textbook and write grammatically correct, complete sentences.
AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills
The AP history courses seek to apprentice students to the practice of history by emphasizing the development of disciplinary practices and reasoning skills while learning historical content. The practices and skills that students should develop in all AP history courses are listed below, along with a condensed description of what students should be able to do with each. Every AP Exam question will assess one or more of these practices and skills.
Disciplinary Practices:
1. Analyzing Historical Evidence
-Primary Sources
Explain the relative historical significance of a source's point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience.
Evaluate a source's credibility and limitations.
-Secondary Sources
Explain how a historian's claim/argument is supported with evidence.
Analyze patterns and trends in quantitative date in non-text-based sources.
Evaluate the effectiveness of a historical claim/argument.
2. Argument Development
-Make a historically defensible claim in the form of an evaluative thesis.
-Support an argument using specific and relevant evidence.
-Use historical reasoning to explain relationships among pieces of historical evidence.
-Consider ways that diverse/alternative evidence could be used to qualify/modify an argument.
APUSH Reasoning Skills
Skill 1: Contextualization
Skill 2: Comparison
Skill 3: Causation
Skill 4: Continuity and Change over Time
Layout of Test:
Section 1 Part A: Multiple Choice-55 Questions-55 Minutes-40% of Exam Score
- Questions appear in sets of 2-5
- Students analyze primary and secondary texts, images, graphs, and maps.
- Questions cover all course periods.