ABSTRACT
Once students have become accustomed to responding successfully to document-based questions (DBQ) framed as multiple-choice and short-answer questions, they are ready to begin tackling DBQs based on more than one or two documents. The redesigned advanced placement (AP) World History, AP European History, and AP US History exams each require students to answer a DBQ framed as an essay question. This DBQ is based on approximately seven documents and may include both visual and nonvisual texts as well as both primary and secondary sources. Obviously, a task that requires students to work with multiple documents is designed to be more challenging than a task based on only one or two. However, because author’s students get so much practice working with DBQs framed as multiple-choice and short-answer questions during the first semester, they seem to struggle less with writing essays than some of their peers at other schools.
