Taking the AP Exam

The APUSH Exam is taken in the Spring of your Junior year. The exam requires students to apply historical thinking skills and knowledge of content as they respond, in writing, to new short-answer, document-based, and essay questions. Newly designed multiple-choice questions ask students to use their knowledge of content to analyze and interpret primary and secondary sources. The exam consists of the following sections, in order:

• Fifty-five multiple-choice questions (55 minutes, 40 percent)

• Four short-answer questions (45 minutes, 20 percent)

• One document-based question (60 minutes, 25 percent)

• One long essay question (35 minutes, 15 percent)