AP History Multiple-Choice Questions
What should your strategy be for answering the stimulus-based multiple choice questions on the AP history exams? Find some best practices below!
Multiple-choice questions on the AP history exams account for 40% of the exam grade. These questions are all in the first section of the exam. You will have 55 minutes to answer 55 questions.
The multiple-choice questions are stimulus based. That means that the multiple-choice questions are not just a series of stand-alone questions without any context, like you might have seen on standardized tests. Instead, each question will be connected to a source or even to multiple sources. You will answer the questions in light of the source(s) you have been presented with.
These sources might be primary texts, maps, graphs, illustrations, photographs, or excerpts from the writings of professional historians.
You will be asked usually 3 or 4 questions about each source or group of sources. These questions will be either about the primary source(s) or about the context in which they were produced.
Types of Sources
Let’s start by breaking down the kinds of sources you might see and the tools that you have available to analyze these sources:
Written primary sources: For written primary sources, you can assess who the writer was, when they were writing, and why the produced the document. It is often necessary to consider their individual opinion about a specific historical event.
Written secondary sources: These sources are usually written by professional historians, writing in the last couple of decades. You usually have to assess their interpretation of past events, especially how it relates to what contemporaries would have said about the same event or how it relates to bigger historical developments.
Illustrations: Illustrations can be tricky because it can sometimes be difficult to assess what is going on in the image and what the artist’s message is. Take a few seconds to actually look at the image. What are you seeing? What figures are in it? What are they doing? Sometimes just taking a moment to look at what is happening can unlock the meaning of the image. Additionally, look for any well-known people, places, or events.
Photographs: Photographs can be approached much like a primary source. Why did the photographer take this picture and what message did the photographer want to convey?
Maps: Maps on the test often show changes in borders or in population. Take a look at the date on the map to place it within its bigger historical context: what change is the map representing?
Charts/Graphs: These sources convey data. While most of your course likely focused on written and visual sources, you can still break down the charts and graphs. Where does the information that they convey fit within the timeline of history? Are there any changes that they are recording? Do they relate to any of the course themes?
Types of Questions
In addition to different kinds of sources, you will also be presented with different types of questions. On the test, take a second or two to assess what type of question you are looking at. Is the question about the source itself or about bigger historical events and processes? In other words, do you gain anything from reading the source itself?
For questions that ask you to analyze the source, you definitely need to read or examine it. For questions that ask about the bigger historical picture, you often don’t strictly speaking need to read the text to get the question correct.
The issue, then, is whether students should always look at the source first or if they should save time by only looking at the source if necessary.
We recommend that most students start with reading the source. First, you will likely need to look at the source to answer at least one of the questions, so it would be more efficient just to always read the source first. Second, the information in the source can provide useful clues to the people, time period, and events in the questions. Even if you don’t need the information to answer the question, it might help remind you of the correct answer.
If you think you don’t have time to read the source, there is time to practice reading primary documents! The more that you read these documents (especially from before the 20th century), the more you will be able to move quickly through the vocab and conventions. Looking for some primary sources for practice? Check out our many posts on primary sources!
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