What the DBQ asks you to do
The document-based question (DBQ) gives you seven documents about one historical development or process and asks you to build an argument from them and from what you already know. The documents can be written texts, numerical sources such as charts, or images. The topic falls between 1754 and 1980.
The DBQ is worth 25% of your exam score, more than any other single question. College Board recommends about an hour for it, including a 15-minute reading period, out of the 1 hour 40 minutes that Section II gives you for both essays.
The prompt asks you to judge, not to list what happened. College Board's sample DBQ asks you to “evaluate the relative importance” of several causes, and the 2026 exam asked students to “evaluate the extent to which” something changed. To evaluate is to decide how much, how important or how true, and to say so in your thesis.
The 7 points and how to earn each
Readers score the DBQ out of 7 points. Each point is earned on its own, so missing one doesn't block the others.
- Thesis (1 point). Make a claim that answers the prompt and that historians could defend with evidence. A restated prompt earns nothing. The claim also needs a line of reasoning: a reason (“because…”) or the categories your essay will argue. Keep the whole thesis in one place, the introduction or the conclusion. It can run longer than one sentence.
- Contextualization (1 point). Describe the wider history around the prompt: developments before, during or after its dates that help explain the topic. A passing phrase such as “tensions were rising” doesn't count. Give it a few sentences with real specifics.
- Evidence from the documents (up to 2 points). Accurately describe what at least three documents say and relate them to the topic for 1 point. Use at least four documents to support your argument for 2 points. Describe each document in your own words. A quotation with no description doesn't count, and neither does a group reference such as “Documents 1–4 show…”
- Evidence beyond the documents (1 point). Use at least one specific piece of evidence that isn't in the documents to support your argument. Describe it; a name dropped in passing isn't enough. It has to fit the prompt's dates and place, and it has to be different from the evidence you used for context.
- Sourcing (1 point). For at least two documents, explain how the author's point of view, purpose, audience or historical situation matters to your argument. Naming one isn't enough: “the audience is Parliament” earns nothing until you say why that audience shapes what the document tells you.
- Complexity (1 point). Show a complex understanding of the topic. College Board lists several ways to do it: explain more than one cause or effect, explain both change and continuity (or both similarity and difference), weigh different perspectives, connect the topic to another period or place, use all seven documents well, or explain the sourcing of at least four documents. Whichever you choose has to be part of your argument and more than a phrase.
Readers treat your essay as a first draft. Grammar slips don't cost points unless they hide your meaning, and a small factual error won't sink the essay as long as the history you use to make your argument is accurate.
The order to write in
- Read the prompt. Mark the dates, the place and the task. Your outside evidence must fall inside those dates.
- Read the documents with the prompt in mind. In your notes, write what each one says in a few words and which side of your argument it helps.
- Note sourcing as you go. For each document, ask who made it, for whom, why, and what was happening at the time. Pick the two or three where the answer changes how you read the document.
- Sort the documents into two or three groups. The groups become your body paragraphs, and naming them gives you your thesis.
- Write the introduction: a contextualization paragraph that leads into your thesis.
- Write one body paragraph per group. Open with a claim. Describe each document in your own words and explain how it supports the claim. Source at least one document per paragraph, and work in your outside evidence where it fits.
- Finish with a paragraph that complicates your argument: evidence that cuts the other way, a limit on your claim, or a link to another period. It's a natural place to aim for the complexity point.
On the 2026 exam, College Board suggested about 15 minutes for reading and planning, steps 1 to 4, and about 45 minutes for writing.
A worked example
This practice prompt uses four documents from the decade before the Revolution. A real DBQ has seven, so read it as a model of the moves, not of the length. The model shows the thesis, the contextualization and one body paragraph, then outlines the rest of the essay.
Evaluate the extent to which colonial resistance to British policies became unified from 1765 to 1775.
That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.
That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.
That it is an essential unalterable Right in nature, ingrafted into the British Constitution, as a fundamental Law & ever held sacred & irrevocable by the Subjects within the Realm, that what a man has honestly acquird is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent… the Acts made there imposing Duties on the People of this province with the sole & express purpose of raising a Revenue, are Infringments of their natural & constitutional Rights because as they are not represented in the British Parliamt His Majestys Commons in Britain by those Acts grant their Property without their consent.
We, his majesty's most loyal subjects, the delegates of the several colonies… we do, for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several colonies, whom we represent, firmly agree and associate… as follows: 1. That from and after the first day of December next, we will not import, into British America, from Great-Britain or Ireland, any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever… 11. That a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town… whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this association…
As we cannot be indifferent on any Occasion that appears nearly to affect the Peace and Happiness of our Country, and as it has been thought necessary, for the publick Good, to enter into several particular Resolves, by a Meeting of Members deputed from the whole Province, it is a Duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear Connections, who have concurred in them, but to ourselves, who are essentially interested in their Welfare, to do every Thing as far as lies in our Power to testify our sincere Adherence to the same; and we do therefore accordingly subscribe this Paper, as a Witness of our fixed Intention and solemn Determination to do so.
From 1765 to 1775, colonial resistance became far more unified. It grew from petitions by colonial delegates and letters between assemblies into a boycott that the colonies' own congress enforced in every town, because each new British measure, above all the punishment of Boston in 1774, convinced more colonists that their rights were under attack. That unity had a limit, though: by 1775 the colonies agreed on what they opposed, but not yet on independence.
Why it works
- It answers the question of extent (“far more unified”) instead of restating the prompt.
- It gives a reason (“because each new British measure…”) and sets out the essay's order: petitions and letters, then enforcement, then the limit.
- The last sentence qualifies the claim, which prepares the ground for complexity.
- It sits in one place, at the end of the introduction.
In 1754 Benjamin Franklin printed a snake cut into eight pieces, each labeled for a colony or region, over the words “JOIN, or DIE.” He was calling for a union that did not yet exist. Britain won the Seven Years' War in 1763, but the victory nearly doubled its national debt. For decades London had winked at colonial smuggling, a policy historians call salutary neglect. Now Parliament set out to raise a revenue in America to help pay for defending it, starting with the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765. Because these laws reached every colony at once, they gave colonists from New England to the Carolinas the same grievance at the same time.
Why it works
- It describes developments before the prompt's dates (the call for union in 1754, the war debt and the end of salutary neglect) and links them to the topic of unity.
- It's a full paragraph with specifics, not a passing phrase.
- None of it repeats the outside evidence used later, the committees of correspondence, so both points stay available.
By 1774, resistance had moved from words to enforcement across the colonies. After Parliament closed Boston's port and took over the Massachusetts government, delegates from twelve colonies met as the First Continental Congress. In the Continental Association they agreed, for themselves and “the inhabitants of the several colonies,” to stop importing goods from Great Britain and Ireland after December 1, and they called for a committee “in every county, city, and town” to watch whether people obeyed (Document 3). The Association's historical situation shows why it drew so many colonies in: the Coercive Acts were meant to make Boston suffer alone, and the delegates answered by making Boston's cause every colony's cause. Colonists already had practice working together, because from 1773 committees of correspondence had linked the colonies to one another. Unity also reached beyond the men who voted. Five days after the Association, fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, signed a public pledge to stand by their province's boycott, calling it a duty they owed not only to their families but “to ourselves” (Document 4). Their purpose was to claim a political role of their own, and that matters to the argument because a boycott depended on what households bought. The Edenton pledge shows the boycott reaching tea tables in North Carolina, far from Boston.
Why it works
- Evidence from the documents: it describes Documents 3 and 4 in its own words and gives each its own point. With Documents 1 and 2 in the earlier paragraph, the essay uses all four documents to support its argument.
- Sourcing: it explains the historical situation of Document 3 (an answer to the Coercive Acts) and the purpose of Document 4 (women claiming a political role), and says why each matters to the claim about unity. Two documents sourced this way meet the requirement.
- Evidence beyond the documents: the committees of correspondence appear in no document, and the paragraph uses them to explain how the colonies could act together.
- Argument: it opens with a claim and ties the evidence back to it, so the documents serve the thesis instead of being summarized in order.
The rest of the essay:
- An earlier body paragraph would use Documents 1 and 2. In 1765, delegates from nine colonies agreed on one argument: only the colonists' own legislatures could tax them (Document 1). In 1768 the Massachusetts House argued that revenue duties took colonists' property without their consent (Document 2). For sourcing, the Circular Letter's audience is the point: Massachusetts wrote to the other colonies' legislatures, not to London, to get them to protest together. At this stage, unity still meant assemblies and delegates exchanging words.
- A closing paragraph would set limits on the claim. The same delegates who organized the boycott called themselves “his majesty's most loyal subjects” (Document 3), and in July 1775 the Second Continental Congress still sent the King the Olive Branch Petition. The colonies united against Parliament's policies before they agreed on independence. Developed with evidence, that qualification is one way to earn the complexity point.
A weaker version, and how to fix it
Colonial resistance to British policies became more unified from 1765 to 1775 in many ways.
Document 3 says “we will not import, into British America, from Great-Britain or Ireland, any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever.” Document 4 was written by women in Edenton, North Carolina. Documents 3 and 4 show that the colonies were unified. Another example is the Boston Tea Party.
What it misses, and how to fix it:
- The thesis restates the prompt. “In many ways” gives no reason and no categories. Fix: say how far unity went and why, as the model does.
- Document 3 is quoted, not described. Fix: say in your own words what the Association did, a boycott with a committee in every town, and connect it to unity.
- Naming the authors of Document 4 isn't sourcing. Fix: explain why it matters that women, who could not vote, signed a public pledge: it shows the boycott reaching households.
- “Documents 3 and 4 show” lumps the documents together. Fix: give each document its own sentence and its own job in the argument.
- The Boston Tea Party is a passing reference, and a weak fit. It was one town's act of defiance, and the paragraph never says how it shows unity. Fix: describe your outside evidence and tie it to the claim, or choose evidence that fits, such as the committees of correspondence.
Common mistakes
- Summarizing the documents in order, 1 through 7, instead of grouping them under claims.
- Misreading a document. Read the source line and the whole excerpt before you decide what it says.
- Using the same fact for context and for evidence beyond the documents. Each point needs its own evidence.
- Choosing outside evidence from outside the prompt's dates or region. It won't count, however accurate it is.
- Sourcing that only labels (“the purpose is to persuade”) without saying how that purpose shapes the document or your argument.
- Splitting the thesis between the introduction and the conclusion. It has to sit in one place.
- Saving complexity for one sentence at the end. Develop it as part of the argument.
- Running long on the DBQ. The long essay is worth 15% of your score and needs its 40 minutes.
What changes in May 2027
Starting with the May 2027 exam, the DBQ covers a wider span of years, so you can use evidence from more of the course. Its topic still falls between 1754 and 1980, it still has seven documents, and the rubric doesn't change, including the amount and type of evidence each point requires.
In practice, expect a prompt that runs across several decades, like the sample DBQ in College Board's 2026 course description, which covers 1865 to 1910. Prepare outside evidence for the whole span, not only its best-known years.