AP Exam
Friday May 8, 2026
Friday May 8, 2026
Exam Cost: $107 (No cost for any student who qualifies for a fee waiver)
Register will be open from October 6 - October 24. Payments must be made through Total Registration. You cannot register after the deadline!
Each student MUST be enrolled in the correct AP Classroom as well. We will get all students enrolled during class by the end of August.
Check out this informational slide from the Guidance Department for more information!
The APUSH Exam, administered by the College Board in early May, is 3 hours and 15 minutes long. There are four components to the exam:
Multiple Choice: 55 Questions | 55 Minutes | 40% of Exam Score
Short Answer: 3 Questions | 40 Minutes | 20% of Exam Score
Document Based Question (DBQ): 1 Question | 1 Hour | 25% of Exam Score
Long Essay Question (LEQ): 1 Question | 40 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score
The exam is graded on a five-point scale. Generally, most public universities award credit or placement to students who earn a 3 or higher while many private colleges require a score of 4 or higher.
Traditionally, most students enrolled in APUSH take the exam but it is not required. Each AP exam costs approximately $100. Even though AP exam scores will not factor into students’ class grades, doing well on the AP Exam has several clear benefits: providing students an edge in college admissions, saving students and parents money on college tuition, and accelerating students’ path toward college graduation.
The AP U.S. History Exam will continue to have consistent question types, weighting, and scoring guidelines every year, so you and your students know what to expect on exam day. The overall format of the exam—including the weighting, timing, and number of questions in each exam section—won’t change.
Section 1A: Multiple Choice
55 Questions | 55 Minutes | 40% of Exam Score
Questions usually appear in sets of 3–4 questions.
Students analyze historical texts, interpretations, and evidence.
Primary and secondary sources, images, graphs, and maps are included.
Section 1B: Short Answer
3 Questions | 40 Minutes | 20% of Exam Score
Students analyze historians’ interpretations, historical sources, and propositions about history.
Questions provide opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know best.
Some questions include texts, images, graphs, or maps.
Students choose between 2 options for the final required short-answer question, each one focusing on a different time period:
Question 1 is required, includes 1–2 secondary sources, and focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1754 and 1980.
Question 2 is required, includes 1 primary source, and focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1754 and 1980.
Students choose between Question 3 (which focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1491 and 1877) and Question 4 (which focuses on historical developments or processes between the years 1865 and 2001) for the last question. No sources are included for either Question 3 or Question 4.
Section 2A: Document-Based Question
1 Question | 1 Hour (includes 15-minute reading period) | 25% of Exam Score
Students are presented with 7 documents offering various perspectives on a historical development or process.
Students assess these written, quantitative, or visual materials as historical evidence.
Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.
The document-based question focuses on topics from 1754–1980.
Section 2B: Long Essay
1 Question | 40 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score
Students explain and analyze significant issues in U.S. history.
Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.
The question choices focus on the same skills and the same reasoning process (e.g., comparison, causation, or continuity and change), but students choose from 3 options, each focusing on historical developments and processes from a different range of time periods—either 1491–1800 (option 1), 1800–1898 (option 2), or 1890–2001 (option 3).
Each of the following Tom Richey videos below will walk you through the different parts of the DBQ.