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

Endorsement by the National Constitution Center

  • The course framework is a model of political and ideological balance.
  • It helps students understand the U.S. Constitution and political system.
  • It helps them become informed citizens willing to preserve, protect, and defend rights and liberties.
  • The center partners with College Board on classroom lessons and materials.
  • AP Course and Exam descriptions are updated periodically at apcentral.collegeboard.org.

What AP Stands For

  • AP principles:
    • Clarity and transparency: Clear expectations, public course frameworks, and sample assessments.
    • Unflinching encounter with evidence: Develop independent thinkers, use evidence and the scientific method.
    • Opposes censorship: Respect for intellectual freedom. AP designation removed if topics are banned.
    • Opposes indoctrination: Analyze different perspectives, no points for agreement with specific viewpoints.
    • Open-minded approach to histories and cultures: Study different nationalities, cultures, religions, races, and ethnicities with primary sources.
    • Every student is listened to and respected: Encourage argument evaluation, respect diversity.
    • AP is a choice: Parents and students freely choose AP courses.

Contents

  • Acknowledgements to committee members for contributions to the Curriculum Framework update for the AP U.S. Government and Politics course in 2023.
  • List of College Board Staff and Special Thanks to individuals for their contributions.

About AP

  • AP enables willing and academically prepared students to pursue college-level studies in high school.
  • Students can earn college credit, advanced placement, or both.
  • AP courses in 39 subjects culminate in a challenging exam.
  • AP teaches critical thinking and argumentation skills.
  • Colleges view AP favorably, with research showing AP students experience greater academic success and degree completion.
  • AP teacher syllabi are evaluated and approved by college faculty.
  • AP Exams are developed and scored by college faculty and experienced AP teachers.
  • Most US four-year colleges grant credit/placement based on AP scores.
  • Over 3,300 institutions worldwide receive AP scores annually.

AP Course Development

  • AP courses emphasize research-based curricula aligned with higher education expectations.
  • Teachers design their own AP course curriculum.
  • Course and exam descriptions present focus content and skills.
  • Content and skills are organized into units representing a sequence in college textbooks.
  • AP provides formative assessments (Progress Checks) to measure student progress.

Enrolling Students: Equity and Access

  • AP encourages equitable access, giving all willing, academically prepared students the opportunity to participate.
  • Encourages elimination of barriers restricting access for traditionally underserved groups.
  • Advocates academically challenging coursework before AP enrollment for preparation.

Offering AP Courses: The AP Course Audit

  • Each school implements its own curriculum to enable students to develop understandings and skills.
  • Optional unit sequence.
  • Schools wishing to offer AP courses must participate in the AP Course Audit.
  • AP Course Audit: AP teachers' course materials are reviewed by college faculty.
  • AP Course Audit ensures courses meet curricular and resource expectations for college-level courses.

AP Course Audit Form

  • The AP Course Audit form is submitted by the AP teacher and the school principal to confirm awareness and understanding of requirements.
  • A syllabus or course outline is submitted by the AP teacher for review by college faculty.
  • More information is available at collegeboard.org/apcourseaudit.

How the AP Program Is Developed

  • The scope of content for an AP course and exam is derived from an analysis of college and university syllabi.
  • A committee of college faculty and expert AP teachers articulates what students should know and be able to do.
  • The course framework is the heart of the course and exam description and serves as a blueprint of the content and skills that can appear on an AP Exam.
  • AP Test Development Committees develop each AP Exam, ensuring alignment to the course framework.
  • The AP Exam development process is a multiyear endeavor with extensive review, revision, piloting, and analysis.
  • Committee members represent diverse perspectives and institutions.
  • Throughout AP course and exam development, College Board gathers feedback from stakeholders.

How AP Exams Are Scored

  • Exam scoring relies on AP teachers and college faculty expertise.
  • Multiple-choice questions are machine scored; free-response questions are scored by college faculty and AP teachers.
  • AP Readers are trained and monitored for fairness and consistency.
  • A college faculty member serves as Chief Faculty Consultant, maintaining scoring standards accuracy.
  • Scores on free-response questions are weighted and combined with multiple-choice results.
  • Raw scores are converted into composite AP scores on a 1–5 scale.
  • AP Exams are criterion-referenced, not norm-referenced or graded on a curve.
  • Criteria for scores of 3, 4, or 5 include:
    • Points earned by successful college students on AP Exam questions.
    • Points predictive of AP student success in subsequent college courses.
    • Achievement-level descriptions formulated by college faculty.

Using and Interpreting AP Scores

  • Development, course, and exam scoring ensure AP Exam scores accurately represent achievement in equivalent college course.
  • Research studies establish AP scores validity.
  • Credit recommendation: 5 = Extremely well qualified (A), 4 = Well qualified (A-, B+, B), 3 = Qualified (B-, C+, C), 2 = Possibly qualified (n/a), 1 = No recommendation (n/a).
  • Colleges/universities set credit/placement policies; most award credit/placement for AP scores of 3 or higher.
  • Most US states have credit policies ensuring college credit for scores of 3 or higher at public colleges/universities.
  • Confirm college's AP credit/placement policy at apstudent.collegeboard.org/creditandplacement/search-credit-policies.

Becoming an AP Reader

  • Each June, AP teachers and college faculty members gather to evaluate and score AP Exams.
  • 98% of educators say it was a positive experience.
  • Benefits include:
    • Bring positive changes to the classroom.
    • Gain in-depth understanding of AP Exam and standards.
    • Receive compensation; expenses, lodging, meals covered for travel.
    • Score from home for certain subjects.
    • Earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs).
  • Apply at collegeboard.org/apreading.

AP Resources and Support

  • Teachers and students receive access to a robust set of classroom resources by completing a simple activation process at the start of the school year.

AP Classroom

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

Unit Guides

  • Appearing in this publication and on AP Classroom, these planning guides outline all required course content and skills, organized into commonly taught units.
  • Each unit guide suggests a sequence and pacing of content, scaffolds skill instruction across units, 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 to explain correct and incorrect answers, and free-response questions with scoring information.

My Reports

  • 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 see where students struggle with content and skills that will be assessed on the AP Exam.
  • Students can view their own progress over time to improve their performance before the AP Exam.

Question banks

  • The Question Bank is a searchable library of all AP questions that teachers use to build custom practice for their students.
  • Teachers can create and assign assessments with formative topic questions or questions from practice or released AP Exams.

Instructional model

  • Integrating AP resources throughout the course can help students develop the course skills and conceptual understandings.
  • The instructional model outlined shows possible ways to incorporate AP resources into the classroom.

Plan

  • Teachers may consider the following approaches as they plan their instruction before teaching each unit.
    • 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

  • When teaching, supporting resources can be used to build students’ conceptual understanding and mastery of skills.
    • 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

  • Teachers can 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.
  • Students will study U.S. foundational documents, Supreme Court decisions, and other texts and visuals.
  • Underpinning the required content of the course are several big ideas.
  • Students will 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.

Preface

  • Command of the Constitution is central to this course.
  • Students are analysts, not spectators; they analyze documents and debates.
  • Knowledge matters; focused knowledge while allowing for state standards and imaginations of individual teachers.
  • Difficult topics are addressed with principled attention to arguments on both sides.
  • Civic knowledge is every student’s right and responsibility.
  • Aristotle: participation in civic life is necessary to live fully.

Introduction

  • The AP U.S. Government and Politics course teaches students to analyze and interpret the Constitution, political documents, and data.
  • Students practice skills used by political scientists.

Maintaining Political Balance

  • AP U.S. Government and Politics is a nonpartisan course.
  • Additional readings and assignments that teachers select to supplement the course must, as a whole, maintain a political balance.

Course Framework Components

  • Course skills: central to the study and practice of government and politics.
  • Course content: organized into commonly taught units. framed by big ideas.
  • Big ideas:
    • Constitutionalism
    • Liberty and Order
    • Civic Participation in a Representative Democracy
    • Competing Policymaking Interests
    • Methods of Political Analysis

Skills

  • Concept Application
  • SCOTUS Application
  • Data Analysis
  • Source Analysis
  • Argumentation

Course Content

  • Unit 1: Foundations of American Democracy (15–22%)
  • Unit 2: Interactions Among Branches of Government (25–36%)
  • Unit 3: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights (13–18%)
  • Unit 4: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs (10–15%)
  • Unit 5: Political Participation (20–27%)