Strategies for Deciphering AP History Prompts

Interpreting the AP Prompt

• Relative Importance: When a prompt asks to "evaluate the relative importance of causes," it is an instruction to rank the causes. The essay must argue why one cause was more significant than another, using evidence to justify that ranking.
• Skill Identification: The prompt will typically demand one of three thinking skills which must organize the entire essay structure:  - Comparison: Identifying similarities and differences between two or more subjects (e.g., comparing a Muslim land-based empire to a Buddhist one).  - Causation: Explaining the factors that led to an event or the effects originating from it (e.g., how Enlightenment ideas led to the American Revolution).  - Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT): Comparing events across two time periods to determine what remained the same and what changed.
• Thematic Categories: Essays must stay within the specific analytical categories provided in the prompt:  - Political: States, power, laws, treaties, and policies.  - Economic: Trade, spending, and wealth accumulation.  - Environmental: Human interaction with the physical environment.  - Social: How people organize societies, such as hierarchies, gender roles, and labor systems.  - Cultural: Religion, language, and belief systems.
• Chronological Constraints: Marking and adhering strictly to the dates provided is essential. Writing about events outside the specified time period (e.g., discussing the first wave of imperialism instead of the second) results in zero points.