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

  • Course and Exam Description: This document includes the course framework, instructional sections, and sample exam questions for AP U.S. Government and Politics, effective Fall 2023. It is endorsed by the National Constitution Center.
  • Updates: AP Course and Exam Descriptions are updated periodically on AP Central.
  • National Constitution Center Endorsement: The course framework is a model of political and ideological balance, designed to help students understand the U.S. Constitution and political system and become informed citizens.
  • AP Principles Overview:
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    • AP involves an unflinching encounter with evidence, fostering independent thinking and conclusions based on the scientific method.
    • AP opposes censorship and supports intellectual freedom for teachers and students.
    • AP opposes indoctrination. Students analyze different perspectives and are not graded on agreement with specific viewpoints.
    • AP fosters an open-minded approach to diverse histories and cultures, grounded in primary sources.
    • Every AP student is listened to and respected, with respectful debate of ideas encouraged and personal attacks prohibited.
    • AP is a choice for parents and students, with course descriptions available online. AP materials are crafted by experts and validated by the American Council on Education.
  • AP Program Goals:
    • Enable willing, academically prepared students to pursue college-level studies in high school.
    • Offer opportunity to earn college credit or advanced placement.
    • Develop critical thinking and argumentation skills.
    • Demonstrate challenging curriculum to college admission officers.
    • Research indicates AP students experience greater academic success in college.
  • AP Course Development:
    • Emphasizes challenging, research-based curricula aligned with higher education expectations.
    • Teachers design their own curriculum, selecting appropriate readings and resources.
    • This description presents content and skills for the AP Exam, organized into units based on college textbooks and teacher feedback.
  • Equity and Access:
    • Encourages equitable access to AP programs for all willing and academically prepared students, eliminating barriers for underserved groups.
    • Advocates academically challenging coursework before AP enrollment.
  • AP Course Audit:
    • Supports school-implemented curricula that enable students to develop content understandings and skills.
    • Requires schools to fulfill curricular and resource requirements before labeling a course "Advanced Placement" or "AP."
    • AP teachers' course materials are reviewed by college faculty to validate courses marked "AP" on transcripts.
  • AP Program Development:
    • The content scope comes from analyzing college syllabi.
    • A committee of college faculty and AP teachers articulates what students should know and be able to do.
    • The course framework blueprints the content and skills for the AP Exam.
  • AP Test Development:
    • AP Test Development Committees create each AP Exam and ensure alignment with the course framework.
    • Exams undergo extensive review, revision, piloting, and analysis.
    • Committee members represent diverse perspectives and institutions.
  • AP Exam Scoring:
    • Relies on expertise of AP teachers and college faculty.
    • Free-response questions and performance assessments are scored by college faculty and AP teachers.
    • All AP Readers are thoroughly trained and monitored.
    • A college faculty member maintains accuracy of scoring standards.
    • Scores on free-response questions/performance assessments are combined with multiple-choice results and converted to a 1-5 scale.
    • AP Exams are criterion-referenced.
  • AP Score Usage:
    • AP Exam scores represent student achievement in equivalent college course.
    • Colleges and universities set their own credit and placement policies.
    • Most private colleges award credit/advanced placement for AP scores of 3 or higher.
    • Most states have statewide credit policies for scores of 3 or higher at public colleges.
  • AP Reader:
    • AP teachers and College faculty evaluate and score the free-response sections each June.
    • The experience is overwhelmingly positive with many benefits, including:
    • Bring positive changes to the classroom.
    • Gain in-depth understanding of AP Exam and Scoring Standards.
    • Receive compensation.
    • Score from home in certain subjects.
    • Earn Continuing Education Units.
  • AP Classroom:
    • Online platform designed to support teachers and students.
    • Unit Guides: Outlines required content and skills, suggests 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.
    • My Reports: Provides teachers with student results on all assignment types.
    • Question Bank: Searchable library of AP questions for custom practice.
  • Instructional Model:
    • Plan: Review unit guides, identify essential questions and skills, and plan pacing.
    • Teach: Integrate content with skills and use available resources like AP Daily.
    • Assess: Use AP Classroom for topic questions and progress checks, provide feedback, and create practice opportunities.
  • AP U.S. Government and Politics Course: College-level, nonpartisan introduction to key political concepts, ideas, institutions, policies, interactions, roles, and behaviors of the U.S. constitutional system and political culture.
  • Course Content: Study U.S. foundational documents, Supreme Court decisions, and other texts to understand relationships among political institutions and behaviors.
  • Big Ideas: Students will explore big ideas that enables them to create meaningful connections among concepts throughout the course.
  • Skill Development: Read and interpret data, make comparisons/applications, and develop evidence-based arguments.
  • Project Requirement: Civic component involving data collection, community service, or policymaking observation, with a presentation relating experiences or findings to course learning.
  • Course Equivalent: Equivalent to an introductory college course in U.S. government.
  • Prerequisites: None, but students should be able to read a college-level textbook and write correctly.
  • Political Balance: AP U.S. Government and Politics is a nonpartisan course endorsed for political balance. Requires the “Declaration of Independence”, “Constitution”, “Articles of Confederation”, representative “Federalist Papers”, “Brutus No. 1”, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail."