AP United States History Tutoring for the May Exam
AP United States History covers more than five centuries, from about 1491 to the present, and the exam rewards analysis rather than recall: even the multiple-choice questions are built on sources, and in the written answers students must build a thesis, set it in context and support it with specific evidence under time pressure. For students who did not grow up with the American national story, the chronology and its vocabulary all have to be learned from the beginning.
Short answer
AP United States History is offered online, one-to-one or in a group class.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 65 per lesson; the group course runs 50 lessons of 90 minutes for USD 1,755, and a class never takes more than 6 students.
Group classes next begin on 25 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
- 3 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP United States History is assessed
Set and scored by College Board and reported on the 1–5 AP scale. Each university sets its own rule on which scores earn credit or placement. Component names are as College Board prints them.
College Board
AP United States History · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I, Part A: Multiple Choice | 40% | 55 min | 55 questions in 55 minutes, usually in sets of 3–4 built on primary and secondary sources, images, graphs and maps. |
| Section I, Part B: Short Answer | 20% | 40 min | 3 questions in 40 minutes, all compulsory from May 2027: question 1 uses one or more secondary text sources, question 2 a primary text source and question 3 a primary or secondary non-text source, each on a different period between 1491 and 2001. |
| Section II: Document-Based Question and Long Essay | 40% | 1 hour 40 min | 2 questions in 1 hour 40 minutes. The Document-Based Question (25%, about 1 hour including a 15-minute reading period) asks for an argument built from 7 documents on a topic between 1754 and 1980; the Long Essay (15%, about 40 minutes) is now a single required prompt spanning roughly half of the course’s periods. |
- The whole exam is taken in College Board’s Bluebook app.
- 2027 exam date: 7 May 2027.
Checked on 8 October 2026
College Board revises individual exams between years. The exam page linked above is the authority for your sitting.
The AP United States History syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 1: Period 1: 1491–1607 (4–6%)
Native American societies before European contact · European exploration in the New World · The Columbian Exchange · Labor, slavery, and caste in the Spanish colonial system · Cultural interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
Unit 2: Period 2: 1607–1754 (6–8%)
How different European colonies developed and expanded · Transatlantic trade · Interactions between American Indians and Europeans · Slavery in the British colonies · Colonial society and culture
Unit 3: Period 3: 1754–1800 (10–17%)
The Seven Years’ War · The American Revolution · The Articles of Confederation · The creation and ratification of the Constitution · Developing an American identity · Immigration to and migration within America
Unit 4: Period 4: 1800–1848 (10–17%)
The rise of political parties · American foreign policy · Innovations in technology, agriculture, and business · Debates about federal power · The Second Great Awakening · Reform movements
Unit 5: Period 5: 1844–1877 (10–17%)
Manifest Destiny · The Mexican–American War · Attempts to resolve conflicts over the spread of slavery · The election of 1860 and Southern secession · The Civil War · Reconstruction
Unit 6: Period 6: 1865–1898 (10–17%)
The settlement of the West · The “New South” · The rise of industrial capitalism · Immigration and migration · Reform movements · Debates about the role of government
Unit 7: Period 7: 1890–1945 (10–17%)
Debates over imperialism · The Progressive movement · World War I · The Great Depression and the New Deal · World War II · Postwar diplomacy
Unit 8: Period 8: 1945–1980 (10–17%)
The Cold War and the Red Scare · America as a world power · The Vietnam War · The Great Society · The African American civil rights movement · Youth culture of the 1960s
Unit 9: Period 9: 1980–Present (4–6%)
Reagan and conservatism · The end of the Cold War · Shifts in the economy · Migration and immigration · Challenges of the 21st century
Where AP United States History marks are usually lost
Writing the DBQ from the documents alone
The Document-Based Question awards a separate point for at least one piece of specific historical evidence beyond the documents, relevant to the argument. Students who build the whole essay from the documents provided miss it, and so do those who repeat information already in the prompt or a document, or who cite evidence from outside the period or region the prompt names. A passing reference does not count.
Ignoring the source in the short answers
From May 2027 every short-answer question comes with a source: one or more secondary texts, then a primary text, then a primary or secondary non-text source such as an image or map, each on a different period. Those who answer from memory of the topic, without engaging with what the source shows or argues, write accurate history that does not answer the question. Each part needs a direct answer.
Trying to cover the whole span in the long essay
The single required long essay from May 2027 has a broad prompt reaching across roughly half of the course’s periods. College Board says students may focus on one or more of the developments it names and are not expected to address the entire time span. Surveying everything produces a list of events with no line of reasoning; the rubric rewards a focused argument with well-chosen evidence.
How we teach AP United States History
A tutor starts AP US History with a framework the student can hang everything on: the course’s periods, its themes, and the reasoning processes of comparison, causation, and continuity and change. Each period is then studied through primary sources as well as the textbook, so that reading a source quickly becomes routine before the short answers and the Document-Based Question demand it. Writing begins early and continues weekly: thesis statements, contextualisation paragraphs, then full timed essays typed under exam conditions and marked against College Board’s rubrics. The Atlantic world gives students from Africa a natural way in — the slave trade, abolition, Reconstruction and the civil rights movement are central to the course — and the tutor uses those links to make the rest of the chronology stick.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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Online AP tutoring for the May 2027 exams: calculus, sciences, economics, history, English and more, for American-curriculum students across Africa.
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