Are you taking AP European History? If so, you know the big AP test occurs in May. Doing well on this exam is a great boost to your college applications, and it can even earn you college credit. So how can you ensure you get the score you want? That's where we come in! This AP European History study guide covers everything you need for your AP Euro review. Read on to learn what the AP Euro exam will be like (including looking at sample questions), what topics the exam will cover, how to create a personalized study plan, and the tips to follow to help you get your best score.
Before we discuss how to develop your AP European History study guide, let's get familiar with the test. The AP Euro test is three hours and 15 minutes long and consists of two sections, each of which is further split into a Part A and a Part B. Section 1 is worth 60% of your exam score, and Section 2 is worth 40%.
Section Question Type # of Questions Time % of Score Multiple Choice Short Answer 3 (for third, choose 1 of 2 prompts) Document-Based Question (DBQ) 60 mins (including a 15-minute reading period) Long Essay 1 (choose 1 of 3 prompts)Section 1 consists of a 55-question multiple-choice section, worth 40% of your overall grade, and a three-question short-answer section, worth 20% of your score. In total, Part 1 is 95 minutes long.
Meanwhile, Section 2 consists of one document-based question, for which you have to synthesize historical documents into a coherent analysis of a historical moment, and a longer essay, for which you must write one essay analyzing a historical moment, with no outside sources at your disposal.
The DBQ is worth 25% of your final grade, and the long essay is worth 15%. You'll get 100 minutes for Section 2, including a 15-minute reading period. There are recommended amounts of time to spend on each essay, but no one will force you to move on to the long essay after 60 minutes (or do the DBQ first). You have the entire 100 minutes to spend as you wish on both essays.
It's worth noting that the exam was recently revised in 2018 and changed slightly again in 2020. The most recent revision is minimal, though: according to the College Board, not much is changing except for the fact that "the short answer questions will now be more tightly aligned with the course skills."
These revisions mean that there are not that many up-to-date practice resources available through the College Board, since old released exams have slightly different formats. That doesn't mean you can't use them—just that you'll need to be aware of these differences.
The AP European History course has nine units:
Each unit will make up about 10-15% of the questions on the AP Euro exam.
Questions on the exam aren't ordered by unit, so you'll be jumping around time periods and themes throughout the test. Interested in seeing what exam questions will look like? Of course you are! Below are explanations and sample questions for each of the four main AP Euro exam sections.
For this section, you'll be shown primary and secondary historical sources and asked to answer three to four questions relevant to each source. The 55 questions are essentially divided up into a series of mini-quizzes. Each question has four possible answer choices.
Note that the presentation of sources in the text ties into the AP test's focus on historical evidence and the actual work historians do when it comes to evaluating and analyzing evidence.
There are two basic kinds of questions on the multiple-choice section: source-analysis questions, and outside-knowledge questions. Source-analysis questions ask you to analyze the historical source presented in some way. You might be asked to link the events described in the given source to a broader historical movement, contrast it with other sources, determine whether it supports or contradicts a certain historical trend, and so on. Outside knowledge questions have little to do with the source and require you to have outside knowledge to answer them. Here's an example of an outside knowledge question:
The short-answer section is three questions long and lasts 40 minutes, giving you approximately 13 minutes per question. You will be asked to give a total of three pieces of information (labeled A-C). For example, you might be asked to provide two pieces of information in favor of a historical thesis and one piece of information against.
You'll get different types of stimuli, or sources, for each question, as well as different topics. Here's what you can expect on test day:
