AP® U.S. Government and Politics Course and Exam Description Notes

Endorsement by the National Constitution Center

• The National Constitution Center endorses the AP U.S. Government and Politics course framework.
• The framework is a model of political and ideological balance.
• It helps students understand the U.S. Constitution and political system.
• It aims to develop informed citizens who will preserve, protect, and defend rights and liberties.
• The center partners with College Board to provide classroom lessons and materials for AP U.S. Government and Politics.
• AP course and exam descriptions are updated periodically, check AP Central for the most recent version.

What AP® Stands For

• AP principles are based on current practices in classrooms nationwide.
• Teachers' expertise is respected, course content is understood and students are academically challenged.

Clarity and Transparency

• AP provides clarity and transparency for teachers and students, who require clear expectations.
• The AP program makes its course frameworks and sample assessments public.

Unflinching Encounter with Evidence

• AP courses enable students to develop as independent thinkers and draw their own conclusions.
• Evidence and the scientific method are the starting points for conversations in AP courses.

Opposition to Censorship

• AP opposes censorship and supports the intellectual freedom of teachers and students.
• If schools ban required topics, the AP designation is removed from the course.
• Evolution in Biology example: Courses that neglect evolution do not pass muster as AP Biology.

Opposition to Indoctrination

• AP opposes indoctrination. AP students analyze perspectives and are not graded on agreement with specific viewpoints.
• AP students are not required to feel certain ways about themselves or the content. Emphasis is placed on assessing sources and drawing independent conclusions.

Fostering Open-Mindedness

• AP courses foster open-mindedness towards the histories and cultures of different peoples.
• Studying various nationalities, cultures, religions, races, and ethnicities is essential.
• AP courses ground studies in primary sources for student evaluation.

Respect and Diversity

• Every AP student who engages with evidence is listened to and respected. Students evaluate arguments, not each other.
• AP classrooms respect diversity in backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints.
• The perspectives and contributions of all AP students are considered.
• Respectful debate is cultivated; personal attacks are prohibited.

Choice

• AP is a choice for parents and students. Course descriptions are available online.
• Parents do not define college-level topics within AP courses.
• AP course materials are crafted by professors and expert educators.
• AP courses and exams are validated by the American Council on Education and studies on AP score use for college credit.
• The AP program encourages educators to review these principles with parents and students so they know what to expect in an AP course.
• Advanced Placement is always a choice, and it should be an informed one.
• AP teachers should be given the confidence and clarity that once parents have enrolled their child in an AP course, they have agreed to a classroom experience that embodies these principles.

Contents

• The document includes acknowledgments, information about AP, resources and supports, instructional models, and course framework.
• It details the AP U.S. Government and Politics course, college course equivalence, prerequisites, and project requirements.
• Also includes: course skills, course content, unit guides, foundational documents, Supreme Court cases, and project guide.

Acknowledgments

• College Board acknowledges committee members for contributions to the Curriculum Framework update for AP U.S. Government and Politics in 2023.
• Lists committee members and College Board staff.
• Special thanks to additional contributors.

About AP

• The Advanced Placement® Program (AP®) enables willing and academically prepared students to pursue college-level studies while in high school.
• AP courses in 39 subjects, each culminating in a challenging exam, teach students to think critically, construct solid arguments, and see many sides of an issue.
• Taking AP courses demonstrates to college admission officers a challenging curriculum. Research suggests that students with a 3 or higher on an AP Exam experience greater academic success in college and are more likely to earn a college degree.
• Each AP teacher’s syllabus is evaluated and approved by faculty. AP Exams are developed and scored by college faculty and experienced AP teachers.
• Most four-year colleges and universities grant credit, advanced placement, or both on the basis of successful AP Exam scores.

AP Course Development

• AP courses and exams emphasize research-based curricula aligned with higher education expectations.
• Individual teachers design their own AP course curriculum, selecting appropriate college-level readings, assignments, and resources.
• This course and exam description presents the content and skills that appear on the AP Exam.
• The content and skills are organized into a series of units found in widely adopted college textbooks.
• The intention of this publication is to respect teachers’ time and expertise by providing a roadmap that they can modify and adapt to their local priorities and preferences.
• Moreover, by organizing the AP course content and skills into units, the AP Program is able to provide teachers and students with formative assessments—Progress Checks—that teachers can assign throughout the year to measure student progress as they acquire content knowledge and develop skills.

Enrolling Students: Equity and Access

• The AP Program strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs.
• This involves giving all willing and academically prepared students the opportunity to participate in AP.
• Barriers restricting access to AP for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underserved should be eliminated.
• College Board also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging coursework before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success.
• It is only through a commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and excellence can be achieved.
• Offering AP Courses: The AP Course Audit
• The AP Program unequivocally supports the principle that each school implements its own curriculum that will enable students to develop the content understandings and skills described in the course framework.
• While the unit sequence is optional, the AP Program does have a short list of curricular and resource requirements that must be fulfilled before a school can label a course “Advanced Placement” or “AP.”
• Schools wishing to offer AP courses must participate in the AP Course Audit, a process through which AP teachers’ course materials are reviewed by college faculty.
• The AP Course Audit was created to provide teachers and administrators with clear guidelines on curricular and resource requirements for AP courses and to help colleges and universities validate courses marked “AP” on students’ transcripts.
• This process ensures that AP teachers’ courses meet or exceed the curricular and resource expectations that college and secondary school faculty have established for college-level courses.

The AP Course Audit form

• The AP Course Audit form is submitted by the AP teacher and the school principal (or designated administrator) to confirm awareness and understanding of the curricular and resource requirements.
• A syllabus or course outline, detailing how course requirements are met, is submitted by the AP teacher for review by college faculty.
• Please visit collegeboard.org/apcourseaudit for more information to support the preparation and submission of materials for the AP Course Audit.

How the AP Program Is Developed

• The scope of content for an AP course and exam is derived from an analysis of hundreds of syllabi and course offerings of colleges and universities.
• Using this research and data, a committee of college faculty and expert AP teachers work within the scope of the corresponding college course to articulate what students should know and be able to do upon the completion of the AP course.
• The resulting course framework is the heart of this course and exam description and serves as a blueprint of the content and skills that can appear on an AP Exam.
• The AP Test Development Committees are responsible for developing each AP Exam, ensuring the exam questions are aligned to the course framework.
• The AP Exam development process is a multiyear endeavor; all AP Exams undergo extensive review, revision, piloting, and analysis to ensure that questions are accurate, fair, and valid, and that there is an appropriate spread of difficulty across the questions.
• Committee members are selected to represent a variety of perspectives and institutions (public and private, small and large schools and colleges), and a range of gender, racial/ethnic, and regional groups.
• A list of each subject’s current AP Test Development Committee members is available on apcentral.collegeboard.org.
• Throughout AP course and exam development, College Board gathers feedback from various stakeholders in both secondary schools and higher education institutions.
• This feedback is carefully considered to ensure that AP courses and exams are able to provide students with a college-level learning experience and the opportunity to demonstrate their qualifications for advanced placement or college credit.

How AP Exams Are Scored

• The exam scoring process relies on the expertise of both AP teachers and college faculty.
• Multiple-choice questions are scored by machine, while the free-response questions and through-course performance assessments are scored by college faculty and expert AP teachers.
• All AP Readers are thoroughly trained, and their work is monitored throughout the Reading for fairness and consistency.
• In each subject, a highly respected college faculty member serves as Chief Faculty Consultant and maintains the accuracy of the scoring standards.
• Scores on the free-response questions and performance assessments are weighted and combined with the results of the computer-scored multiple-choice questions, and this raw score is converted into a composite AP score on a 1–5 scale.
• AP Exams are not norm-referenced or graded on a curve. Instead, they are criterion-referenced, assuring that every student who meets the criteria for an AP score of 2, 3, 4, or 5 will receive that score, regardless of how many students that is.
• The criteria for the number of points students must earn on the AP Exam to receive scores of 3, 4, or 5 include:
  • The number of points successful college students earn when their professors administer AP Exam questions to them.
  • The number of points researchers have found to be predictive that an AP student will succeed when placed into a subsequent, higher-level college course.
  • Achievement-level descriptions formulated by college faculty who review each AP Exam question.

Using and Interpreting AP Scores

• The extensive work done by college faculty and AP teachers in the development of the course and exam ensures that AP Exam scores accurately represent students’ achievement in the equivalent college course.

• Frequent and regular research studies establish the validity of AP scores as follows:

  Credit Recommendation	College Grade Equivalent	AP Score
  Extremely well qualified	A	5
  Well qualified	A-, B+, B	4
  Qualified	B-, C+, C	3
  Possibly qualified	n/a	2
  No recommendation	n/a	1

• Colleges and universities are responsible for setting their own credit and placement policies, and most private colleges and universities award credit and/ or advanced placement for AP scores of 3 or higher.

• Additionally, most states in the U.S. have adopted statewide credit policies that ensure college credit for scores of 3 or higher at public colleges and universities.

• To confirm a specific college’s AP credit/ placement policy, a search engine is available at apstudent.collegeboard.org/creditandplacement/ search-credit-policies.

Becoming an AP Reader

• Annually, AP teachers and college faculty members gather to evaluate and score the free-response sections of the AP Exams.
• The AP Reading is reported as a positive experience with benefits including bringing positive changes to the classroom and gaining in-depth understanding of AP Exam scoring standards.
• Readers are compensated for their work during the Reading.
• Online distributed scoring opportunities for certain subjects are available.
  Apply at collegeboard.org/apreading

AP Resources and Supports

• Teachers and students receive access to classroom resources through a simple activation process.

AP Classroom

• AP Classroom is an online platform designed to support teachers and students throughout their AP experience.
• The platform provides a variety of resources and tools to provide yearlong support to teachers and enable students to receive meaningful feedback on their progress.

Unit Guides

• Outlines required course content and skills, organized into units.
• Suggests a content sequence and pacing, scaffolds skill instruction, organizes content into topics, and provides tips on taking the AP Exam.

Progress Checks

• Formative AP questions for every unit provide feedback to students on the areas where they need to focus.
• Available online, Progress Checks measure knowledge and skills through multiple-choice questions with rationales and free-response questions with scoring information.
• Because the Progress Checks are formative, the results cannot be used to evaluate teacher effectiveness or assign letter grades to students (*misuse are grounds for losing school authorization to offer AP courses).

My Reports

• Provides teachers with a one-stop shop for student results on all assignment types, including Progress Checks.
• Teachers can view class trends and student struggles.
• Students can view their own progress over time to improve their performance before the AP Exam.

Question Bank

• A searchable library of AP questions for teachers to build custom practice for students.
• Teachers can create and assign assessments with formative topic questions or questions from practice or released AP Exams.

Class Section Setup and Enrollment

• Teachers and students sign in or create their College Board accounts.
• Teachers confirm they have added the course they teach to their AP Course Audit account and have had it approved by their school’s administrator.
• Teachers or AP coordinators set up class sections so students can access AP resources and have exams ordered on their behalf.
• Students join class sections with a join code provided by their teacher or AP coordinator.
• Students will be asked for additional information upon joining their first class section.

Instructional Model

• Integrating AP resources throughout the course can help students develop the course skills and conceptual understandings.

Plan

• Review the overview at the start of each Unit Guide to identify essential questions, conceptual understandings, and skills for each unit.
• Use the Unit at a Glance table to identify related topics that build toward a common understanding, and then plan appropriate pacing for students.
• Identify useful strategies in the Instructional Approaches section to help teach the concepts and skills.

Teach

• Use the topic pages in the Unit Guides to identify the required content.
• Integrate the content with a skill, considering any appropriate scaffolding.
• Employ any of the instructional strategies previously identified.
• Use the available resources, including AP Daily, on the topic pages to bring a variety of assets into the classroom.

Assess

• Measure student understanding of the content and skills covered in the unit and provide actionable feedback to students.
• As you teach each topic, use AP Classroom to assign student Topic Questions as a way to continuously check student understanding and provide just in time feedback.
• At the end of each unit, use AP Classroom to assign students Progress Checks, as homework or an in-class task.
• Provide question-level feedback to students through answer rationales; provide unit- and skill-level formative feedback using My Reports.
• Create additional practice opportunities using the Question Bank and assign them through AP Classroom.

About the AP U.S. Government and Politics Course

• AP U.S. Government and Politics provides a college-level, nonpartisan introduction to key political concepts, ideas, institutions, policies, interactions, roles, and behaviors that characterize the constitutional system and political culture of the United States.
• Students will study foundational documents, Supreme Court decisions, and other texts and visuals to gain an understanding of the relationships and interactions among political institutions, processes, and behaviors.
• Underpinning the required content of the course are several big ideas that allow students to create meaningful connections among concepts throughout the course.
• Students will also engage in skill development that requires them to read and interpret data, make comparisons and applications, and develop evidence-based arguments. In addition, they will complete a political science research or applied civics project.

College Course Equivalent

• AP U.S. Government and Politics is equivalent to an introductory college course in U.S. government.

Prerequisites

• There are no prerequisite courses for AP U.S. Government and Politics. Students should be able to read a college-level textbook and write grammatically correct, complete sentences.

Project Requirement

• The required project adds a civic component to the course, engaging students in exploring how they can affect, and are affected by, government and politics throughout their lives.
• The project might have students collect data on a teacher-approved political science topic, participate in a community service activity, or observe and report on the policymaking process of a governing body.
• Students should plan a presentation that relates their experiences or findings to what they are learning in the course.

Preface

• This course aims to immerse students in the ideas and knowledge essential to democracy.
• AP U.S. Government and Politics offers students the opportunity to see how individuals and their ideas can shape the world.

Principles:

1. Command of the Constitution is central.
2. Students are analysts, not spectators.
3. Knowledge matters; we define a focused body of shared knowledge while leaving room for variety.
4. Difficult topics should not be avoided.
5. Civic knowledge is every student’s right and responsibility; provide top learning resources.

• Aristotle described humankind as political animals.
• President Eisenhower declared that politics should be the part-time profession of every person who would protect the rights and privileges of free people.
• Grateful to the AP community of teachers and their colleagues in colleges across our country, whose shared devotion to students forged this course framework.