AP United States History Past Exam Questions

Free-Response Questions

Download free-response questions from past exams along with scoring guidelines, sample responses from exam takers, and scoring distributions.

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2020: Free-Response Questions

The 2020 free-response questions are available in the AP Classroom question bank.

2015: Free-Response Questions

The 2015 sample response PDFs (.pdf/32.8MB) were updated to reflect changes to the rubrics that took effect with the 2016 AP U.S. History Exam.

2015: Free-Response Questions

Questions

Student Performance

Samples, Scoring Guidelines, and Commentary

Free-Response Questions

Scoring Guidelines

Student Performance Q&A

Scoring Statistics

Score Distributions

Introduction and Preface

Short Answer Question 1

Short Answer Question 2

Short Answer Question 3

Document-Based Question 1

Long Essay Question 2

Long Essay Question 3