Advanced Placement United States History (AP US History, APUS, APUSH, USAP, or USHAP; also AP American History (APAH) or American History AP (AHAP) in some schools) is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program. It is consistently the most widely taken among all AP exams, with over 300,000 students participating in recent years.
Course
The AP US History course is designed to provide the same level of content and instruction that students would face in a freshman-level college survey class. AP US History classes generally use a college-level textbook as the foundation for the course. The most commonly used textbook is The American Pageant, which is used by 40 percent of all AP US History classes. Students may use supplemental materials, such as review books, to prepare for the examination as well as resources found online such as flashcards or textbook outlines.
Other commonly used textbooks that meet the curriculum requirements include:
America's History (Henretta et al.)
American History: A Survey (Castillo-Brinkley)
American Passages (Ayers et al.)
The American People (Nash et al.)
The Enduring Vision (Boyer et al.)
Give Me Liberty! (Foner)
Liberty, Equality, Power (Murrin et al.)
Out of Many (Faragher et al.)
A People and a Nation (Norton et al.)
The College Board does not require that students taking this course take the AP test. However, some high schools may require students to take the exam in order to receive AP credit on their transcripts.
Exam
The AP US History exam lasts 3 hours and 5 minutes and consists of two parts. Part I includes 80 multiple choice questions with each question containing five choices. Students have 55 minutes to complete this part of the exam. The questions cover American History from the colonial era to modern times (from 1607 until nearly the present day.) In addition to traditional-style questions, there are often a few political cartoons, maps, and charts to interpret. The questions in this part tend to flow from easier questions to harder ones rather than chronologically.
Part II of the exam is the free-response section, composed of a document-based question (DBQ) and two thematic essays, commonly called free-response questions (FRQs). Part II begins with the DBQ, which provides an essay prompt and 8-10 short primary sources (documents) or excerpts related to the prompt. Students are expected to write an essay responding to the prompt in which they utilize the documents in addition to outside information. The remainder of Part II consists of four essay prompts--two are from the pre-Civil War period and two are from the post-Civil War period. Students must write two essays: one from each set. There is a mandatory fifteen-minute reading period for students to read the prompts and the documents, take notes, and brainstorm; they may not begin writing the essay until this period has ended. They then have 115 minutes to write the three essays. It is recommended that students spend 45 minutes on the DBQ and 35 minutes on each essay, since the DBQ counts for more points than either essay, but the only timing enforced is the full 115 minute period.
In May 2011, the AP U.S. History Test was taken by 406,086 students worldwide, making it the most-taken AP test.
Scoring
The multiple-choice section and the free-response section each account for 50% of the final score. For the former, each multiple-choice question answered correctly earns 1.125 points. As of the 2011 exam a wrong answer does not take away from the overall test score. A perfect score on the multiple-choice section is 90. For the free-response, the DBQ is worth 45% of the section's total value, while the two thematic essays are each worth 27.5% (55% combined).
Grade distribution
In the 2007 administration, 311,000 students took the exam from 10,465 schools. In the 2008 administration, 346,641 students took the exam. In the 2009 administration, 360,173 students took the exam. In the 2010 administration, 387,416 students took the exam. In the 2011 administration, 406,086 students took the exam.
The grade distributions for 2007-2011 were:
| 5 | 11.0% | 8.5% | 11.0% | 11.0% | 11.0% |
| 4 | 19.9% | 18.2% | 19.3% | 18.8% | 20.8% |
| 3 | 22.2% | 21.4% | 22.1% | 22.9% | 21.0% |
| 2 | 26.1% | 25.4% | 25.2% | 25.9% | 26.7% |
| 1 | 20.8% | 26.5% | 22.2% | 21.4% | 20.5% |
| Mean | 2.75 | 2.57 | 2.72 | 2.72 | 2.75 |
Composite score range
The College Board has released information on the composite score range (out of 180) required to obtain each grade:
| 5 | 117-180 | 114-180 | 115-180 | 106-180 |
| 4 | 96-116 | 92-113 | 94-114 | 85-105 |
| 3 | 79-95 | 74-91 | 76-93 | 68-84 |
| 2 | 51-78 | 42-73 | 46-75 | 47-67 |
| 1 | 0-50 | 0-41 | 0-45 | 0-46 |