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About AP African American Studies
About AP African American Studies
About the Course
About the Course
AP African American Studies is an interdisciplinary course that examines the diversity of African American experiences through direct encounters with rich and varied sources. Students explore key topics that extend from early African kingdoms to the ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary moment.
AP African American Studies Course Framework
AP African American Studies Course Framework
Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora (~900 BCE–16th century)
Unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance (16th century–1865)
Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom (1865–1940s)
Unit 4: Movements and Debates (1940s–2000s)
Students will:
Review and discuss artifacts from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Study and analyze African artworks held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gaining a deeper understanding of African culture and society.
Review sketches of the Amistad trial from Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Amistad captives
Read and discuss the writings of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Maya Angelou.
Read original newspaper and magazine articles from the antebellum period, including debates in the pages of Freedom’s Journal.
Read and analyze the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Read excerpts from Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro.
Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Nonviolence and Racial Justice” from 1957, gaining a deeper understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.
Analyze artworks such as Negro es Bello II (Black is Beautiful II) by Elizabeth Catlett and I Go To Prepare A Place For You by Bisa Butler.
About the Exam
About the Exam
Exam Overview
The AP African American Studies Exam assesses student understanding
of the skills and learning objectives outlined in the course framework. In
addition to the end-of-course exam, students will complete an Individual
Student Project by May 31. Students will present their project in class and
will then respond to questions about their findings as they engage in an oral
defense of their project.
The end-of-course exam is 2 hours 40 minutes long and includes 60 multiple-
choice questions and four free-response questions. Additionally, the exam
will include one exam day validation question about the student project. This
question will be similar to one of the sample project oral defense questions,
but students will respond in writing to this question on the exam.
Teachers will score their students’ project presentation and oral defense
using a rubric provided by AP. The project score and the exam score are
combined to generate an AP score of 1–5 for college credit and placement.
The details of the exam can be found below:
Exam Duration
2hrs 40mins
Prepare for Your Exam
Prepare for Your Exam
Section I: Multiple Choice
Section I: Multiple Choice
60 Questions | 70 Minutes | 60% of Exam Score
Questions usually appear in sets of 3–4 questions.
Each set of questions includes 1 or 2 sources that serve as stimulus material.
Approximately half of the source material in this section will be drawn from required sources in the course framework. The remaining sources will be related to required course content but will not be sources that students will have directly studied as required content in the course.
Section 1B: individual student project-exam day validation question
Section 1B: individual student project-exam day validation question
1 Question | 10 Minutes | 1.5% of Exam Score
This question will present students with the opportunity to respond in writing to one of the project oral defense questions. Students will be asked to provide analysis, reflection, comparison, or evaluation of at least one of the sources they used for their course project.
Section II: Free Response
Section II: Free Response
4 Questions | 1 hour 25 Minutes | 30% of Exam Score
Short-Answer Questions
3 Questions | 40 mins | 18% of Score
In the short-answer section, you’ll respond to all parts of the questions in the provided field in the testing app. Some questions include texts, images, graphs, or maps.
This section includes:
1 short-answer question based on a text source
1 short-answer question based on a visual source
1 short-answer question focused on a broad course theme
You'll be asked to:
Analyze the provided sources
Analyze the developments, processes, and themes and put those developments and processes in context
Make connections between those developments and processes
Each question will include either three or four question parts and will assess your mastery of course content and skills.
Document-Based Question
1 Question | 45 mins | 12% of Score
The 45-minute recommended time includes time for reading and analyzing the documents.
You’ll be presented with 5 documents, each of which will offer a different perspective on a historical development or process related to African American Studies.
You’ll be asked to develop and support an argument based on these 5 documents in combination with other evidence from your own knowledge.
The document-based question will be focused on a topic related to the required content of the AP African American Studies course.
You'll be asked to:
Analyze the provided sources
Analyze the historical developments and processes described in the source
Individual Student Project
Individual Student Project
8.5% of Exam Score
Students complete a 3-week project where they define a research topic and line of inquiry, conduct independent research to analyze authentic sources from multiple disciplines, and develop and deliver a presentation about their selected topic.
Students present the results of their project to their teacher and class, and respond to questions from their teacher as part of an oral defense to demonstrate their understanding of how their sources and the information provided in those sources contributed to their understanding of their project topic.
Teachers score the project using a rubric provided by AP.
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