AP U.S. History DBQ Examples and the Lessons behind Them
What Is AP U.S. History?
Advanced Placement U.S. History (AP U.S. History or APUSH) is an intensive history course examined by the American College Board, which spans over 500 years of American history. Both the immense breadth of the course and the exam requirements makes it a challenging AP: candidates are required to respond to primary and secondary source material, and must construct sophisticated historical argumentation to achieve a top score of five. Unless self-studying the course, those wishing to study AP U.S. History are required to have completed their school’s standard U.S. History course first.
The AP U.S. History course covers nine units, beginning in 1491 and ending in 2020:
Unit 1 (1491–1607): Covers the Americas pre-European settlement; the factors behind the colonization of the Americas; the Columbian Exchange; and the consequences of the cultural interaction between Native Americans and Europeans.
Unit 2 (1607–1754): Requires students to first understand how and why North America was colonized by Europeans, before addressing how the colonists’ relationship with Britain began to change.
Unit 3 (1754–1800): Explores how America gained its independence and established the new republic.
Unit 4 (1800–1848): Addresses how the republic developed during its first half a century.
Unit 5 (1844–1877): Explores how sectional and regional conflict began to emerge within the United States; how this conflict grew to Civil War; and the subsequent success and failures of Reconstruction.
Unit 6 (1865–1898): Investigates how America became an industrialist, capitalist nation during the Gilded Age.
Unit 7 (1890–1945): Covers both world wars, and how America moved from an isolationist nation to a dominant global power.
Unit 8 (1945–1980): Addresses America’s international relations during the Cold War, alongside domestic developments regarding the Civil Rights Movement.
Unit 9 (1980-2020): Notes how America experienced a conservative resurgence throughout the end of the 20th century and the early 21st century.
While the AP U.S. History document based question (DBQ) will be based on content from units 3–8, APUSH students must have a comprehensive understanding of all nine modules to excel in the final exam.
How Is AP U.S. History Assessed?
There are four different types of exam questions within the AP U.S. History exam:
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs): Candidates are required to answer 55 MCQs in 55 minutes. Some MCQs are based on primary source stimuli (a short passage, cartoon, or image), and others simply require knowledge recall.
Short Answer Questions (SAQs): Students must complete three sets of three SAQs in the final AP U.S. History exam (nine SAQs total). The first three are based on a primary source; the second three are based on two different secondary sources; and, for their final set of three, candidates have a choice between two ‘free’ sets of SAQs.
A Document Based Question (DBQ): Perhaps the most challenging element of the AP U.S. History course, the DBQ presents test-takers with an exam question and seven primary historical sources. Candidates are required to produce a line of historical argumentation, using the sources to defend their thesis.
A Long Answer Question (LEQ): The LEQ requires students to produce an argumentative historical essay. There are three LEQ question options in the final AP U.S. History exam, and candidates must respond to one with a defensible thesis and sophisticated analysis to defend their claim.
Candidates have 3 hours and 15 minutes to complete the AP U.S. History exam.
Section 1 of the exam (55 MCQs and nine SAQs) is 1 hour and 45 minutes long, and makes up 60% of the student’s overall grade.
Section 2 of the exam (one DBQ and one LEQ) is 1 hour and 40 minutes long, and makes up the remaining 40% of the overall grade.
Both sections of the exam are taken together on the same day.
What Is a DBQ and How Is It Marked?
For the Document Based Question (DBQ) section of the exam, candidates are presented with seven primary historical sources, and must use these materials to construct an argumentative essay.
There are seven marks available for the DBQ:
Thesis/Claim (1 mark): Candidates must establish a historically defensible claim that establishes a clear line of reasoning.
Contextualization (1 mark): Students need to explain the broader historical context of the topic to ground their argument.
Evidence from the Documents (2 marks): To score both marks, at least 4 documents must be used within the essay’s analysis.
Evidence Beyond Documents (1 mark): At least 1 piece of historical evidence, that is not found within any of the historical documents, must also be incorporated into the essay.
Analysis and Reasoning Sourcing (2 marks): To achieve the first of the two marks, candidates must analyze how two of the documents’ point of view/purpose/historical situation/audience is relevant to defending the thesis. To achieve the second of the two marks, the essay must demonstrate a complex understanding of the question through sophisticated argumentation and/or effective document use.
There are different ways to achieve the second of the two ‘analysis and reasoning’ marks, students may:
Establish a complex thesis that enables them to explore multiple perspectives throughout their essay (e.g. multiple causes or effects, multiple similarities or differences, cause and effect, continuity and change etc.).
Analyze how four of the documents’ point of view/purpose/historical situation/audience is relevant to defending the thesis.
May use all seven documents to respond to the prompt.
May use their evidence from beyond the documents to demonstrate a different perspective.
Common AP U.S. History DBQ Mistakes
The DBQ demands that learners engage in multiple, high-level historical skills at once:
Comprehending complex primary source material,
Establishing a sophisticated historical claim,
Maintaining a line of argumentation,
Evaluating multiple dimensions of a historical issue,
Applying the AP U.S. History course content accurately.
This challenging task sees many essays lose marks due to the same common errors:
Not responding to the DBQ exam question/prompt: In order to achieve high marks on the DBQ, test-takers must maintain a sustained argument in response to the question. In many cases students start analyzing the source material in front of them, without considering the question they are specifically being asked.
Over-contextualizing: To gain the context mark, candidates need to provide the immediate, appropriate context that explains the build up to the events of the question. Over-explaining the decades or centuries of history that has come before means that valuable time is wasted.
Not reading the entirety of the documents: Failing to consider the entirety of a document often causes students to misanalyze, or only partially analyze, a source in their work. For an examiner, this indicates a misunderstanding on the part of the learner, and therefore limits the number of evidence and analysis marks they can achieve.
Not including information from outside of the documents: Similarly to the above, those who do not read all of the seven documents often fail to gain the mark available for ‘historical evidence from outside of the documents’, as the information they include is evident in one of the documents. To gain the mark for ‘evidence beyond the documents’ candidates must ensure that their wider knowledge is not evident in any of the material.
Not aligning the evidence from outside of the documents to the analysis: Simply stating knowledge is not sufficient to gain the ‘outside evidence’ mark. The information must be aligned to the thesis, reiterating or providing nuance towards the argument.
Producing a thesis statement that simply mirrors the question: Thesis statements must clearly establish a perspective and line of argumentation. Simply mirroring the question does not meet the requirements to score this mark, as it suggests a lack of knowledge about the multiple causes / consequences / similarities / differences pertinent to the topic. This insufficiency may look like:
Exemplar DBQ question: ‘Evaluate to what extent debates over slavery contributed to the outbreak of the American Civil War?’
Weak response: Debates over slavery greatly contributed to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Strong response: Whilst regional debates over slavery reflected the cultural and economic tensions that led to the American Civil War, a third factor, of debates over the role of the federal government, exposed further political tensions that also contributed to the outbreak of the conflict.
Not exploring multiple elements of the argument: Many students who fail to produce a sophisticated thesis statement and then struggle to analyze multiple themes within the topic, as they have not identified them from the outset. Creating a clear, multifaceted opening claim helps guide candidates to address multiple elements of the argument throughout their essay.
Not producing sustained analysis: As is the case with many free response questions (FRQs), essays that deviate from the thesis and the task at hand often result in unclear trains of thought that lack analytical depth. Surface level discussion means that test-takers are unable to gain both marks available for analysis and reasoning.
AP U.S. History DBQ: Example Responses
‘Evaluate the extent to which the opposition to taxation without representation was the primary force motivating the American revolutionary movement during the period 1763–1776.’
Thesis/Claim
Weak response: Opposition to taxation without representation was the primary force motivating the American revolutionary movement during the period 1763–1776.
Strong response: Whilst opposition to taxation without representation motivated some of the earliest examples of resistance to British Crown rule, broader ideological shifts during the Enlightenment period, alongside Thomas Paine’s accessible arguments in ‘Common Sense’, also played a fundamental role in causing settler resistance to evolve into a full revolution.
Contextualization
Weak response: Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492, which began the Spanish and Portuguese domination of South and Central America. Here they enslaved Native Americans and then, increasingly, African people to mine for silver and gold. Later, in the early 17th century, the English set up their first permanent settlement in the Americas: Jamestown. Throughout the 17th century they established 12 more colonies, dominating the northeast coast of what is now the U.S. These colonies were diverse both economically and culturally, however, no matter the nature of their charter (royal, proprietary, or corporate), they were all ultimately under the control of the British monarch. Following the British engagement in the (misleadingly named) Seven Year’s War with the French in the Americas from 1754–1763, issues began to form between the colonies and the crown. Both the colonists and the British forces fought together to win the war. However, whilst the colonists gained more confidence, as they believed that their success had proved that they were capable of providing for their own defence, the British came away from the war with a low opinion of the colonies, seeing them as poorly trained and disorderly. The British crown thus abandoned their earlier policy of salutary neglect, and began to rule the colonies more tightly. In practice this looked like importing a military force to guard the American borders, and increasing taxes on the colonies to repay the money spent on the Seven Years War. The differing perspectives post-conflict, coupled with the changing economic and ruling policies, caused colonists’ resentment to grow between 1763 and 1776.
Strong response: The British engaged in the (misleadingly named) Seven Year’s War with the French in the Americas from 1754–1763. Both the colonists and the British forces fought together to win the war. However, whilst the colonists gained more confidence, as they believed that their success had proved that they were capable of providing for their own defence, the British came away from the war with a low opinion of the colonists, seeing them as poorly trained and disorderly. The British crown thus abandoned their earlier policy of salutary neglect, and began to rule the colonies more tightly. In practice this looked like importing a military force to guard the American borders, and increasing taxes on the colonies to repay the money spent on the Seven Years War. The differing perspectives post-conflict, coupled with the changing economic and ruling policies, caused colonists’ resentment to grow between 1763 and 1776.
Evidence, Analysis, and Reasoning
Weak response: Document 6 is from Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ where he criticizes the British crown and says that America should have self-rule.
Strong response: Document 6 is an excerpt from Thomas Paine’s text ‘Common Sense’, which was published in a pamphlet that spread rapidly throughout the colonies. Paine argued that it was ‘absurd’ for a ‘small island’ (referring to Britain) to be governing the territories of North America, both on account of the size difference between the two areas, and due to the thousands of miles between them. Paine argued in favour of revolution in a clear and decisive manner, which made his text, and thus his ideas, accessible for a large percentage of the colonists. Paine was able to package and market an anti-British monarchy sentiment in such a way that even ‘common readers’ were able to understand his ideas, quickly supporting them. Document 6 exposes the broader resentment that ultimately contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolution: colonists were becoming more and more discontented with British rule as a general principle; simply being granted representation in taxation was becoming an insufficient compromise. The success of Paine’s pamphlet indicates that the American revolutionary movement was fueled by a desire for independent rule, in regard to not only economics but also politics and culture. Taxation without representation was just one element of a growing, holistic disconnect and resentment.
Evidence from outside of the documents
Weak response: During the 1760s and 1770s the ideas of the Enlightenment were becoming popular in America.
Strong response: Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ can be seen as one element of the larger philosophical shift that occurred during the Enlightenment. The beliefs of deism, rationalism, and the social contract had profound influence on educated colonists during the 1760s and 1770s. There was increasing resentment of British crown rule in the 13 colonies, since the King was ruling without being stationed there; without consulting with those that lived there; and without considering the best options for those who had settled there. Paine’s direct attack on King George III and the ideas of monarchy reflected the growing sentiment of the educated class that ‘divine right’ was losing its place in the social order, and that instead the government should reflect the wants of the people. Rather than simply being an oppositionary movement to taxation without representation, the outbreak of the American Revolution can be seen as an example of the philosophy of the Enlightenment in action.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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To tackle the DBQ students need to:
Briefly establish the perspective of each document.
Construct a sophisticated claim in response to the question.
Choose the four documents that most adequately support this thesis.
Choose the two best sources for extended analysis.
Identify a piece of wider knowledge that is applicable to the argument.
Begin organising this information into an essay.
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There are seven marks available on the DBQ question. The DBQ makes up around 25% of the overall AP U.S. History mark.
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Not necessarily. Students can score full marks on the DBQ through ensuring that they use at least four of the documents, analyze at least two of them in detail, and have sophisticated analysis throughout their essay.