This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AP United States History exam will be a shortened, online exam
The College Board announced on April 3 that the 2020 exam will consist of a modified DBQ, or Document Based Question.
What's a DBQ, you ask?
The Document Based Question will give you a prompt, a statement, that you must either support, or refute. It's an argument.
You will also be given several primary source historical documents, maps, charts, and images. You have to make an argument and support it using the documents you are given.
In a normal DBQ, students are given 7 documents and 55 minutes to complete the DBQ. However, as this year the exams are only 45 minutes, the College Board has announced that there will be only 5 documents.
Writing an effective DBQ is actually quite simple if a certain format is followed. Instead of a subjective evaluation, the College Board uses a simple checklist rubric to award points on the DBQ.
On average, AP Exam graders will spend anywhere between 60 - 120 seconds reading your essay. It is therefore imperative that your essay is straightforward and to the point, and all aspects of the checklist are clearly visible in your essay.
Now let's go through writing an effective DBQ.
College Board's rubric can be broken up into 6 parts:
Contextualization
Thesis
Usage of Documents
Analysis of Documents
Evidence Beyond Documents
Complexity
Contextualization
Earning this point on the exam is the easiest. A contextualization is where you set the stage for the essay by providing background information about the historical time. For example, if you are given a prompt that instructs you to analyze the extent to which World War 2 strengthened the American economy and put the United States on the world stage as a superpower, you would want the first 5 - 6 sentences of your essay to talk about America's situation before WW2 (Great Depression, High Unemployment), then how the United States entered war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and finally about the end of the war with an American victory.
This contextualization should be atleast 5 - 6 sentences and should contain in depth background information relevant to the prompt.
Think about it this way. If your essay was being read by a foreigner who had little knowledge of US History, how would you explain the background chain of events to them?
Thesis
A good thesis statement is also another easy point on the DBQ. Your contextualization should smoothly transition into your thesis statement, in which you state the prompt and what you are arguing for.
A good thesis statement should be 1 - 2 sentences long, transitioning from the contextualization, restating the prompt, stating your argument, along with the evidence you will use to back it up, and depending on your essay format, possibly a counterargument.
Here is an example.
The League of Nations failed to provide peace and security to Europe after World War 1, and was poorly negotiated and implemented, as evidenced by the lack of enforcement of the weapons production in Germany, a failure to resolve disputes such as the Manchurian Crisis, and the ultimate outbreak of World War 2 only 20 years later.
Usage of Documents
There are 3 points to be earned by using the documents you are given.
To earn the first point, you must acknowledge atleast 2 documents in your essay.
To earn the second point, you must use atleast 2 documents in your essay by explaining their relevance and significance to your argument and the prompt.
To earn the third point, you must use atleast 4 documents in your essay by explaining their relevance and significance to your argument and the prompt.
There are no extra points for using all 5 documents, but you are still welcome to do so
I would recommend you try to incorporate atleast 4 documents into your essay.
Look at it this way. You are given several documents, and must use them as evidence for your argument. The documents will consist of quotes, statistics, maps, images, and historical writings that you can use to support a point.
For example, if I was arguing about the League of Nation's failures, and one of the documents I was given was a quote from a European leader expressing his disappointment in the League, I could use this in my essay to argue that European leaders felt the League was a major failure.
For each document, it is important that you do more than simply state what the document is about. You have to analyze the context of the document and tell your readers why this document is significant, why it supports your argument.
Analysis of Documents
To get the 2 points here, you must showcase an analysis for atleast 2 of the documents.
There are 4 ways to do this
Historical Context - This is a deeper explanation of the documents importance at the time. If you are given a chart for example, you can put in several sentences explaining what the statistics in the chart represent and the historical background information behind it.
Audience - This is where you talk about the audience of a specific document and why it is important. For example, if a document you are given is a speech to Congress by a president, you could explain how the fact that the speech was directed at Congress was significant. What was the audience meant to do? How were they meant to feel?
Purpose - This talks about the purpose behind a document. What was the writer intending to do? If you are given a document from an excerpt of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, you could talk about what he was trying to accomplish by publishing it and his purpose for doing so.
Point of View - This talks about the documents point of view and how it is relevant to the prompt. For example, if you are given a document from The Federalist Papers, you could talk about the Federalist agenda and their beliefs about how the US Government should be run.
Remember, you are only required to do a HAPP for 2 documents, although you are welcome to do more. Remember to still state the significance and relevance of every document you use.
Also, keep in mind that different documents will have different HAPPs that work best for them. Not every HAPP will work for all documents. When reading the documents, make a mental note of what HAPP you think will work best for that document.
Evidence Beyond the Documents
To get the 2 points from this section, you must use 2 additional pieces of evidence from beyond the documents.
This part is relatively easy and basically asks you to use any historical document or event that you want to, as long as you can use it in your argument. You are not required to use a HAPP for these, although you must still explain the significance and relevance to your argument.
It is your call on what outside evidence you want to use, so be sure and use one that you can argue in a way that will make your argument more effective.
Complexity
Finally, we have the Complexity point.
This is the most difficult point to get.
Your primary focus when writing the DBQ should be making sure you have a good context, thesis, and that you use the required number of documents, outside evidence, and support them with proper analysis.
If you do all those things successfully, there is a good chance you will already have a 5 for the exam.
However, you should definitely attempt the Complexity point. This is awarded to students who can showcase a complex understanding of the themes in the prompt and the argument.
There are 3 ways to do this.
Cause and Effect - This means you show cause and effect in terms of the historical context, by showing what event led to what, and how this was significant to your argument.
Compare and Contrast - For this, compare or contrast two ideas or themes and show how this was significant to your argument
Continuity and Change Over Time - In this one, you showcase how a certain idea or theme has either continued in history over time, or how that idea or theme has changed throughout history, and how it is significant to your argument.
It is recommended that you try and incorporate parts of these complexity arguments throughout your essay, rather than simply in a separate paragraph. This is a difficult point to get, and the majority of essays do not earn it. Still, it is something you should attempt on the AP exam.
By following this simple checklist and making sure you incorporate all the required things into your DBQ, you stand a good chance of earning a 4 or 5 on the exam.
Remember, your essay needs to be straightforward and should flow well. AP Graders do not spend a lot of time reading essays in depth, so it is highly important that your essay can get your point across fast, and that all the items on the checklist are easily visible in your essay.
Good luck!
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