What the short-answer section asks
The short-answer section is Part B of Section I: three questions in 40 minutes, worth 20% of your exam score. Each question has three parts, labeled A, B and C, and each part asks for a short, specific answer. Write in full sentences. On the 2026 exam, College Board's directions said an outline or a bulleted list alone was not acceptable.
Starting in May 2027, all three questions are required and each one comes with a source:
- Question 1: secondary text sources, such as historians' interpretations. In College Board's sample question and on the 2026 exam, it paired excerpts from two historians and asked how their interpretations differ.
- Question 2: a primary text source.
- Question 3: a non-text source, primary or secondary, such as an image, graph or map.
Each question focuses on a different period, anywhere from 1491 to 2001. Before 2027, you answered Questions 1 and 2 and then chose Question 3 or Question 4, neither of which had a source.
How the points work
Each part is worth 1 point and is scored on its own, so each question is worth 3 points. A part earns its point when it does exactly what its task verb asks:
- Identify: name the thing asked for. No explanation needed.
- Describe: give the relevant features of something. Naming a term on its own isn't a description.
- Explain: say how or why something happened, or how two things are connected, using evidence or reasoning.
- Compare: describe or explain similarities, differences or both.
Read every condition in the part. If it gives dates, your example has to fall inside them. If it asks for a development not mentioned in the excerpts, one the excerpt already names won't answer it.
As with the essays, readers treat your answers as first drafts. Grammar slips don't cost points unless they hide your meaning, but the history you use has to be accurate.
How to write each part
- Read the source and all three parts before you write, so you don't spend your best example on the wrong part.
- Answer in your first sentence, using the key words of the question.
- Give one specific piece of evidence: a named event, law, person, group or document, with its date if you know it.
- Explain in one more sentence how that evidence answers the question. That sentence turns a description into an explanation.
- Stop. Two to four sentences per part is enough. There's no thesis, introduction or conclusion.
Forty minutes for three questions is about 13 minutes each, the split College Board suggested on the 2026 exam.
A worked example
This practice question follows the 2027 format for Question 2, a primary text source. The source is Benjamin Franklin's testimony before the House of Commons in February 1766, while Parliament debated repealing the Stamp Act.
Q. What was the temper of America towards Great-Britain before the year 1763?
A. The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience to acts of parliament. … They were governed by this country at the expence only of a little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. …
Q. And what is their temper now?
A. O, very much altered. …
Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans?
A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great-Britain.
Q. What is now their pride?
A. To wear their old cloaths over again, till they can make new ones.
Briefly describe one likely purpose of Franklin's testimony.
Franklin's purpose was to persuade Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act. He told the members that colonists who had once accepted British rule willingly now had a temper “very much altered,” and that they had stopped buying British goods, preferring to wear “their old cloaths over again.” London merchants, who had lost those orders, were already asking for repeal, so Franklin's warning gave Parliament a practical reason to give way.
Why it works
- The first sentence answers the question with a clear purpose.
- It supports that purpose with the source's own words.
- It connects the purpose to the audience (Parliament) and the situation (the boycott), which makes it a description rather than a label.
Briefly explain how one development from 1763 to 1766 contributed to the change in colonial attitudes that Franklin describes.
In 1765 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which taxed newspapers, wills, licenses, college diplomas, and even playing cards and dice. Colonists objected that Parliament had no right to tax them because they elected no one to it, the principle of no taxation without representation. That tax on everyday paper turned colonists who, in Franklin's words, had “submitted willingly to the government of the Crown” into colonists whose temper was “very much altered.”
Why it works
- It names a specific development with its date.
- The second sentence gives the reason colonists objected, which is the “how” the question asks for.
- The last sentence ties the development back to the change the source describes.
Briefly explain how one development from 1767 to 1775 shows that the change Franklin describes continued after 1766.
In 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which put duties on imported glass, lead, paint, paper and tea. Colonists answered with another boycott: merchants from Boston to Charleston stopped buying British goods, and the Daughters of Liberty spun homespun cloth at public spinning bees. Colonists were doing what Franklin had described, wearing old clothes until they could make new ones, which shows that the altered temper outlasted the Stamp Act's repeal.
Why it works
- The development falls inside the dates the question gives.
- It explains how the evidence connects to the source instead of stopping at the evidence.
- It takes three sentences: the answer, the evidence and the connection. Nothing more is needed.
The colonists were mad about taxes, so their attitude changed.
It's on topic, but it names no specific development, gives no date, and doesn't explain how taxes changed attitudes. Naming the Stamp Act and saying why colonists objected to it fixes all three.
Common mistakes
- Answering with a list or an outline instead of full sentences.
- Writing a short essay with a thesis and an introduction. Answer each part directly.
- Giving a general answer (“taxes”) when the part needs a specific one (“the Stamp Act of 1765”).
- Describing when the part says explain. Add the how or the why.
- Using an example from outside the dates in the question, or one the excerpt already mentions when the part asks for one it doesn't.
- On a question about historians, summarizing each excerpt instead of stating the difference between the two arguments.
- On an image, map or graph, describing what you see without connecting it to the history the part asks about.
- Spending 20 minutes on Question 1 and rushing Question 3.
What changes in May 2027
All three short-answer questions become required, and each includes a source: secondary text sources in Question 1, a primary text source in Question 2, and a primary or secondary non-text source in Question 3. Each focuses on a different period. The 40 minutes, the scoring and the amount of evidence each part needs stay the same.
To prepare:
- Practice reading two historians' excerpts and stating their disagreement in one sentence.
- Practice with non-text sources such as political cartoons, paintings, photographs, maps and graphs. Before you answer, say who made the source and what development it shows.
- Keep using older released questions. Past Questions 3 and 4 had no source, but the course content and skills they test haven't changed.
Sources
- AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description, 2026: short-answer sample, scoring guidelines and task verbs (PDF)
- AP History Exam Updates (AP Central)
- AP United States History Exam (AP Central)
- AP United States History: About the Exam (AP Students)
- 2026 AP United States History Free-Response Questions (PDF)