AP® US History​

Without the 13 colonies there would be no AP® United States History. Kind of obvious, right? But how much do you really know about these early European communities and the governments that they created? It can be a little daunting getting them all straight, especially since they each had their own identities, histories, places of origin, etc. But not to worry, we’ve created this APUSH review to get this info down for you just in time for the upcoming AP® US History exam.

The redesign has brought a great deal of uncertainty and confusion amongst APUSH teachers. In many ways, we are all “rookie” teachers, as all of us have the challenge of implementing fundamental curricular and skills-based changes into our classrooms.

One of the more significant changes is to the structure of one essay on the AP® exam, the Document Based question (DBQ). The rubric for the DBQ was previously a more holistic essay that combined a strong thesis, and use of documents and outside information to support the argument. This has been transformed into a much more structured and formulaic skills-based rubric. The change has led to a healthy debate about the pros and cons of both types of essays, but in general the core of the essay has remained the same: write a thesis and support it with evidence in the form of documents and outside information. If students continue to apply these basic writing skills, they are likely to earn 3 or 4 out of the seven total points for the Document Based Question.

You are probably well aware that the current political party situation in the United States has been dominated by a two-party system a contest between the Republican and Democratic Parties. But did you know that these two parties didn’t really come to dominate the scene until 1856 (one of the two parties has claimed a win in every single presidential and congressional election since then)?

The redesign (and re-redesign in the second year) has brought a great deal of uncertainty and confusion amongst APUSH teachers. In many ways, we are all “rookie” teachers, as all of us have the challenge of implementing fundamental curricular and skills-based changes into our classrooms.

One of the more significant changes is to the structure of the major essays on the AP® exam, the Document Based question (DBQ) and Long Essay Question (LEQ). The rubrics for the essays were previously a more holistic essay that combined a strong thesis, and use of documents (for the DBQ only) and outside information. This has been transformed into a much more structured and formulaic skills-based rubric. The change has led to a healthy debate about the pros and cons of both types of essays, but in general the core of the essay has remained the same: write a thesis and support it with evidence in the form of documents (for the DBQ only) and outside information. If students do this basic writing, they are likely to earn 3-4 out of the possible points (six total points for the Long Essay Question, seven total points for the Document Based Question).

When Franklin D. Roosevelt took over from Herbert Hoover in 1933, the United States was going through a time of great crisis. The Great Depression, and later the Dust Bowl, had hit the nation hard, causing widespread unemployment, business and farm failures, and severe international trade problems. In order to combat the nation’s problems, FDR developed his New Deal “alphabet agencies.”

There are hundreds of topics covered in the AP® US History curriculum, and as a student taking the AP® US History exam, you must be familiar with all of them in order to do well on the exam. However, this does not mean you need an in depth knowledge of every single topic that will be covered. The best way to be sure that you know enough about a topic is to make sure you can define it, explain the historical context behind it, and explain why it is important. In this AP® US History crash course, we will go over that exact information for one of the many topics to be covered on the exam: Impressment.

Assuming you have lived in the US all your life and as the stellar APUSH student you are, you know it like the back of your hand, right? No? Well don’t panic. To help you learn all you need to know to ace the AP® US History exam;here is a quick run-through of the Bill of Rights.

Studying for the AP® US History exam can seem like an endless cycle of memorizing dates and names. Sure, if you’ve got a great memory, you may end up with a brain full of lists and numbers, but can you explain the historical connections between every person and event that you’ve memorized? That’s why we’ve created this AP® US History Crash Course Review—we get right to the historical significance of the Yalta conference and tell you how it might pop up on a future APUSH exam.

The Grange. No, not the popular ZZ Top song from 1973—the late nineteenth-century movement of farmers, politicians, and economists that tried to improve the lives and conditions of rural Americans at a time of financial crisis.