AP® US History FAQ: Everything You Need to Know for 2024 (2024)

Read below for detailed answers to the most commonly-asked questions about the 2024 AP® US History exam!

Is AP® US History easy? What can make it hard?

The AP® US History course is inherently more difficult than a regular US History course. The AP® courses are designed to teach at a college introductory level, and the AP® exams test your knowledge of college-level content. Within the realm of AP® exams, the AP® US History exam is more difficult than the majority of the AP® exams. Here’s why:

In 2023, 47.5% of students scored a 3 or above on the AP® US History exam, with a mean score of 2.54.

It is important to note the sample size when viewing statistics. The AP® US History exam has been the second most popular exam in the last three years, second only to AP® English Language.

Approximately 470,000 students take the AP® US History exam every year. In 2023, 467,975 students took the APUSH exam.

Because of the accessible nature of the content, it is likely that some students who take AP® US History lack the academic experience necessary to do well or do not adequately prepare for the exam. This at least partially explains why the pass rate for the APUSH exam is typically lower than the average pass rate of all AP® exams.

So, while the passing percentage may appear low, it is possible that the percentage is skewed slightly due to a higher volume of unprepared test takers.

In order to maximize your study time for the AP® US History exam, it is useful to know how the exam sections are weighted so that you can focus your attention on the areas that carry more weight than others.

The AP® US History exam is fairly evenly weighted among all nine categories, but three of the nine categories carry a much lower weight than the others. These categories are:

• Unit 1: Period 1: 1491–1607 (4-6%)
• Unit 2: Period 2: 1607–1754 (6-8%)
• Unit 9: Period 9: 1980–Present (4-6%)

These units are only weighted at 4-8% of the exam, while the following 6 units are weighted at 10-17% of the exam:

• Unit 3: Period 3: 1754–1800
• Unit 4: Period 4: 1800–1848
• Unit 5: Period 5: 1844–1877
• Unit 6: Period 6: 1865–1898
• Unit 7: Period 7: 1890–1945
• Unit 8: Period 8: 1945–1980

When attempting a score of 3 or better of the AP® US History exam, it could be useful to know how many questions you need to answer correctly in each section to achieve that score. Our AP® US History score calculator (previewed below) shows that you must correctly answer 28 multiple-choice questions and at least half of the short answer and essay questions to achieve a passing score.

Is AP® US History worth it?

The AP® US History exam is worth taking for various important reasons. First, AP® courses help build essential college skills, such as time management and study skills. AP® courses also help to build an academic confidence level for students going on to college.

Second, taking AP® courses lets colleges know that you are taking your academics seriously and that you are familiar with and prepared for the rigors of college-level courses. According to College Board research, “students who receive a score of 3 or higher on AP® Exams typically experience greater academic success in college and have higher graduation rates than their non-AP® peers.”

Perhaps the most important benefit of taking the AP® US History exam is the potential for college credit, which can translate into thousands of dollars in savings on your college tuition. By completing college credits in high school, you can avoid the need for additional semesters beyond four years and, in some cases, even graduate early.

Earning college credit can translate into significant savings on college tuition. The list below of several top colleges outlines the savings realized when using AP® US History for college credit.

The chart clearly outlines that there are significant savings to be gained by taking and passing the AP® exams. Add to this the educational benefits and it is clear that taking the AP® US History exam is worth your time and effort.

When is the 2024 AP® US History exam?

The 2024 AP® US History exam will take place on:

Fri, May 10, 2024, at 8am local time

Curious about when other AP® exams are happening in 2024? View or download the complete AP® exam schedule here.

Is the 2024 AP® US History exam a digital test?

Schools can take the 2024 AP® US History exam as a traditional paper-and-pencil test or as an in-school digital exam on computers. More information on the digital option is available here.

You should check with your teacher and AP® Coordinator to know if you’ll take a paper-and-pencil or digital version.

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When do AP® US History scores typically come out?

According to the latest update from the College Board exam season timeline, students will receive their AP® scores in July 2024. Historically, the College Board typically releases AP® scores early in the month of July.

You’ll be able to access your AP® scores online with your College Board account username and password.

How is AP® US History scored? What’s the weighting of different questions?

The multiple-choice section of the AP® US History exam requires answering 55 questions in 55 minutes. The questions are typically grouped in subject sets of three to four. The questions require you to analyze historical texts and evidence using primary and secondary sources. All sources, maps, and graphs needed to answer the question are included.

The AP® US History short answer section consists of three questions with a time limit of 40 minutes. This section actually consists of four total questions – the first two are required, and you can choose to answer either question 3 or question 4, for a total of three answered questions.

The first two (required) questions cover the years 1754 to 1980. The optional questions cover 1491 to 1877, and 1865-2001 respectively.

The single document-based question on the AP® US History exam allows a 15-minute reading period and then allows for an additional 45 minutes to answer the question.

You must read 7 documents from a variety of historical perspectives. Based on your assessment of these documents, you must present and defend an argument that is supported by the provided documents. This question can cover any topic from the time period 1754-1980.

The last question on the AP® US History exam is the long essay question. You are allowed 40 minutes to answer this question. For this question, you can choose from three time periods. Option 1 is 1491-1800, Option 2 is 1800-1898, and Option 3 is 1890-2001. You should choose the option for which you feel most comfortable developing and defending an argument.

It’s useful to know that the rubrics for the LEQ and DBQ have been slightly changed for the 2024 exam. The basic instructions remain the same, but the instructions for earning the evidence and complexity points have been simplified. The most noticeable changes are in the DBQ, where the number of documents that need to be used and the number of times POV has to be analyzed to earn full credit has been reduced. You can find the full rubrics in the College Board’s Course and Exam Description.

Pro tip: when answering the free-writing questions on the AP® US History exam, remember not to rely too heavily on quotations. Overusing quotations can signal to the exam reader that you are not confident in your understanding of historical content/context and lack the ability to adequately express that understanding.

The units are weighted according to the chart below. If you want to know how this weighting translates to an actual score, try our free AP® US History score calculator. As you can see from the chart below, units 3-8 are weighted more heavily than the rest, so be sure to prepare well for those sections.

The exam weighting breakdown for AP® US History is as follows:

What happens if you fail AP® US History?

If you fail or your score on the AP® US History exam is not high enough to receive college credit at the institution of your choice, it is important not to panic!

You can retake the AP® US History exam as many times as you choose to achieve a higher score. The exam is given once a year in May. You will be required to pay the exam fee every time you take the exam.

The impact of failing the AP® US History exam on your high school GPA will actually be negligible. Most high schools base your course grade on your coursework and course exams. They don’t typically factor your AP® exam score into your course grade, so it shouldn’t affect your GPA

For college admissions, the impact of failing the AP® US History exam depends on the reason for taking the exam. If you are taking the exam for college credit, typically a score lower than a 3 (or a 4 for some schools) will disqualify you from receiving college credit for the course.

Since the student is in control of where their AP® scores are sent, you can choose not to send a low score to the college of your choice. In addition, if you do send your AP® US History exam score to a college and then retake the exam and achieve a higher score, you can choose to cancel your lower score.

When do students typically take AP® US History? When is best?

Students typically take the AP® US History course later in their high school career.

The AP® US History exam does not have any prerequisite requirements, however, many schools require at minimum successful completion of the school’s regular US History course. Many also require a grade of C or better on either AP® European History or AP® World History. For these reasons, most schools recommend waiting until your junior or senior year to take AP® US History.

Waiting until 11th or 12th grade to take AP® US History means that you’re well-established in your high school career and more able to juggle the demands of more rigorous classes. This experience will allow you to handle this intensive survey course that covers the entirety of American history.

Taking other AP® courses before AP® US History also allows you to have more exposure to the in-depth and informed responses required for the College Board’s short answer and essay questions before tackling them in the detail-heavy environment of AP® US History.

Some students like to take more than one AP® class at a time. Many pair the reading and writing intensive AP® US History course with either an AP® language or AP® math course to balance the workload.

In the end, the decision of when to take AP® US History will depend on your academic abilities and your workload. You should discuss the decision with your parents and your guidance counselor to settle on the perfect time to take AP® US History.

Where can I find past AP® US History exams?

The College Board has made past AP® US History exam questions available on their AP® Central website.

In addition, the College Board has made practice tests available for the past several years. Using these practice tests allows you to gain familiarity with the level of depth of the questions and the types of responses that have been successful in the past.

Practice tests for the AP® US History exam for the most recent exam years can be found below:

• 2023 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2022 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2021 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2019 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2018 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2017 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2016 AP® US History Free-Response Questions
• 2015 AP® US History Free-Response Questions

You can find some examples of the multiple choice questions from the AP® US History Course and Exam Description. There are only 17 questions in the guide, so this will not mimic the actual test in length and may omit some important learning objectives.

If you would like additional practice on the multiple choice portion of the exam, Albert provides thousands of practice questions that are aligned with the actual units covered by the AP® US History exam.

There is quite a bit more useful information on the AP® Central website that you should review if you want to maximize your score on the AP® US History exam. This includes:

• AP® US History Scoring Guidelines 2023 / 2022 / 2019 / 2018 / 2017 / 2016
• AP® US History Chief Reader Reports 2023 / 2022 / 2019 / 2018 / 2017 / 2016
• AP® US History Scoring Reports 2023 / 2022 / 2019 / 2018 / 2017 / 2016

The scoring guidelines are useful to review because they outline how points are allocated or withheld on the short answer questions.

Unlike multiple choice, the short answer questions can be more subjective to judge. The scoring guidelines provide examples of answers that would be awarded full or partial credit. This information can be invaluable to students trying to milk every point out of the AP® US History test.

In the Chief Reader Reports, the Chief Reader for each year shares insights on each short answer and essay question. The reports outlines the expectations for each question and the elements that were present in successful responses. The report also provides information on where students missed the mark on the question.

According to the 2019 Chief Reader Report for AP® US History, one common mistake that students made was relying too heavily on quotations. To the reader this signaled an inability to show comprehension by expressing the ideas from the excerpts in their own words. From this report data, you can learn not to rely on quotations and to restate concepts to demonstrate a higher level of understanding.

Another useful tool is the AP® US History Scoring Report. This report lets you see at a glance which questions students struggled with and which ones they were successful in answering. For example, question #3 on the 2019 exam had the lowest mean score of 1.34 points (out of a possible 3).

Correctly answering this question required an understanding of the economics of different colonial groupings from 1607 to 1754. According to the Chief Reader Report, students who missed this question often failed to correctly identify the geography of the colonies or discussed factors that occurred outside the specified time frame.

After reviewing the Scoring Guidelines, the Chief Reader Reports and the Scoring Reports, you can also review the sample responses. For example, the sample response for question #3 provides three actual student responses to the question: one that received full credit, one that received two points, and one that received one point.

If you’re looking for powerful practice with AP® US History FRQs,Albert has practice questions for each type of FRQalong with examples of responses that would earn full points. Albert even provides a detailed explanation of how the sample response earned each point in the rubric!

AP® Central provides a lot of information on the short answer and essay questions, but it is important to remember that 40% of the exam score comes from the multiple choice section. Albert provides thousands of AP-aligned practice questions for the AP® US History exam, along with detailed explanations for each question.

You can learn more about Albert here

Who should take AP® US History? What sort of students may like it more than others?

The decision to take AP® US History depends on your academic interests and goals after graduation. If you have enjoyed history courses in the past and are interested in learning more about the events and cultures that went into founding the United States, AP® US History could be a good choice for you. You can read more detail in the course overview.

You are not required to take AP® US History to graduate, so if history and analytical writing are not strengths for you, it might be better to choose a different AP® course. It really does depend on your interests and academic strengths.

If college is your goal, taking AP® US History looks good on your transcript and can boost your overall GPA. AP® courses carry more weight than the average high school class, or even honors classes, since they are considered college-level. The combination of AP® classes on your transcript, a higher weighted GPA and a higher class rank can make the difference when applying to colleges with more competitive admissions.

If you are considering taking AP® US History to get a perfect score, you’ll want to be aware of the difficulty level and the percentage of 5s awarded for this exam. Approximately 10-11% of students who take the AP® US History exam typically score a 5 on the exam.

This is comparable to several of the other AP® History exams. The AP® US Government exam awarded 12.9% of students a perfect score in 2019, and AP® European History awarded a 5 to 11.7% of students. AP® World History had the lowest percentage, with only 8.7% of students being awarded a perfect score.

No matter which AP® courses you choose, achieving a perfect score will always be difficult, so you should choose AP® courses based on your interests and academic strengths. You should decide after weighing advice from your parents and guidance counselor, but the ultimate decision should be yours.

How do students typically score on AP® US History? What’s the score distribution?

How students usually score on the AP® US History exam depends on a variety of factors. First, it is important to note that the AP® US History exam is the second most popular AP® exam, so the trends over the past three years are based on an extremely large sample size. The larger sample size increases the reliability of the data.

Over the last three years, the scoring trends for the AP® US History exam are as follows:

Over the last few years, the percentage of students who achieved a passing score has remained mostly stable, with about 50% of students passing the exam with a score of 3 or higher.

For 2023, the mean score on the AP® US History exam was 2.54, which was based on 467,975 total test takers.

Need help preparing for your AP® US History exam?

Albert has thousands of AP® US History practice multiple-choice questions, free-response questions, and full-length practice tests to try out.