Short Answer Questions

This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌 Overview

• Students answer 2 required questions and pick between Question 3 and 4. All questions involve analysis of historical developments, making connections between processes, and contextualization
• 20% of Exam Score
• 40 min
• 3 questions scored on a 3 point rubric for a total of 9 points

💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Spend about 13 minutes on each question, and remember that you have 40 minutes for three questions.
• Your SAQs should be about 3 sentences for each A, B, and C (9 sentences total for each SAQ). If you have enough knowledge to add more, go ahead and do so, as long as you are not taking up too much time. Show off your knowledge when you have it and are confident, but otherwise, keep it as simple as possible.
• Don’t stress—just do your best!

🕜 Before You Write

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start writing?

• It can be helpful to write or think back to down any information pertinent to the question given on scratch paper.
  • For instance, if an SAQ asked, “Describe one cause of the Protestant Reformation in England during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547),” you could jot down something about Henry VIII’s desire for divorce with his first wife (which the Catholic Church refused to grant him because of Catherine being the Pope’s aunt). You could also think about the dissatisfaction people had with the Catholic Church because of their abuse of spiritual power.
• Write a word or short phrase next to A, B, and C in the question that identifies what your answer will be. It will help you remember your answers and stay on track of time constraints.

📑 Understanding the Sources

• You’ll most likely encounter two types of sources during the SAQs: picture prompts (most likely paintings from a certain period in history, although sometimes they may provide photographs) and quote prompts. In both cases, pay attention to the time period provided!
• For quote prompts, make sure that before you write anything down, you can understand the perspective being shared. With quote prompts, you’ll definitely be asked questions about the perspective of the author or the person who said the quote, so you’ll want to be able to understand and synthesize the person’s perspective. More often than not, they’ll ask you to provide evidence that backs up or challenges the speaker’s perspective.
• For painting/picture prompts, you may be asked to describe not just the time period of a painting, but any important socio-political events that may have prompted the painting.
• Always check and remember the time period. To help you understand the prompt, contextualize the time period in your head and if it is necessary, contextualize it in your answer as well.
• Keep in mind what is going on during that time in a location (and in other locations and what developments are being made around the world/region) and what developments/changes occur as a results of what is being discussed/what is happening in the source. This may help you answer the question that the SAQ is answering. You don't need to know exact dates, but having a general timeline in your head can be very helpful.
• Take notes next to the source, underline phrases, and identify the author. The author and time period will give you much needed context to help you form your answer.

🗺️ Structuring Your Responses

• Don’t write any more than you need to. If a question asks you to explain or describe, 3-4 sentences is probably a safe bet.
• Plan out your answers before you write them! Don’t spend too long planning, though – you’ve got to get writing quickly.
• Make sure to label each part of your response with parts A, B, C. This sounds silly in the moment, but it’s important to make sure that the AP graders can clearly see the parts of your response. Do not just throw all of your responses into one paragraph, as this will make it unclear where one part starts and ends.
• There is a difference between the verbs ‘Explain’ and ‘Describe’ used in the prompts, so make sure you are aware of their definitions. ‘Explain’ means to provide information about how/why a specific topic occurs, whereas ‘Describe’ simply means to provide the descriptions and characteristics of a topic.
• Restate the question in your response. This helps you make sure you are answering the question currently and are doing what they are asking.
• Keep the responses as simple and short as possible, as long as they aren't too short or simple (around 3 sentences for each part, 9 total).

🔢 Choosing the Question #3 or #4

• Honestly, just choose whichever one you feel more comfortable with! If you don’t feel confident at all on SAQ 3 but you feel better about SAQ 4 (or vice versa), pick the one that you feel you can write the most about. Remember, you only have 40 minutes for 3 SAQs – you can’t afford to waste time!
• Go with your gut and whichever one you feel more comfortable with/have the most information to support. If it's in a time period or event you know very well, go for it! If you do not know much about either option, choose the one you have enough knowledge of the surrounding context and history… it may help you just enough to get through an SAQ response.
• Try to answer each part of both questions in a word or short phrase next to the question. Then, answer 3 or 4 depending on the stronger of the two sets of answers. If you can’t come up with a strong point for 3, then do 4!
• Use the APE acronym to best answer the prompt and get all the points: ‘A’ is for answering the question correctly and ‘P’ is for proof which is bringing in a detail of the information you know that supports your answer to the prompt and ‘E’ is for explaining both the answer and how your proof properly supports it.