APUSH Review Timeline & Themes

APUSH Exam Review

The Exam

  • The APUSH exam is 3 hours and 5 minutes long and has two sections.
    • Section I: 80 multiple-choice questions in 55 minutes.
    • Section II: 15 minutes to plan and 45 minutes to write a Document-Based Question (DBQ) essay, and 70 minutes to answer two Free-Response Questions (FRQs).
      • Suggested time for each FRQ: 5 minutes planning, 30 minutes writing.

Scoring

  • DBQ and FRQs are scored on a scale of 1-9.
    • Evaluated on thesis, argument, and supporting evidence (including documents for the DBQ).
  • Multiple-choice questions account for 50% of the total score, and essays account for the other 50%.
    • DBQ: 22.5%
    • FRQs: 27.5% each.
  • 180 possible points:
    • Multiple Choice: [# \text{ correct}] \times 1.125 = _
    • DBQ: # \text{ out of } 9 \times 4.50 =
    • FRQ 1: # \text{ out of } 9 \times 2.750 = _
    • FRQ 2: # \text{ out of } 9 \times 2.750 = _

Document-Based Question (DBQ)

  • Answer the question using both documentary evidence and outside knowledge.
  • Read the question carefully.
  • Brainstorm ideas.
  • Read the documents critically.
    • Consider descriptions, interpretations, and opinions.
    • Pay attention to the source of each document.
  • Write your essay.

Essay Writing

  • Thesis Paragraph
    • Addresses the question directly.
    • Contains a clear thesis statement (your theme).
    • Outlines organizational categories (sets up subsequent paragraphs).
  • Supporting Paragraphs
    • Topic sentence.
    • Specific factual information.
    • Interpretive commentary.
    • Documentation (DBQ).
    • Clincher sentence.
  • Conclusion
    • Supports and summarizes the essay.

Levels of Questions

  • Level One: Factual recall.
    • Answerable from the text or other resources.
    • Example: What was the Stamp Act?
  • Level Two: Inference and impact.
    • Requires students to make inferences about the impact of factual information in its historical context.
    • Ask "So What?" to understand relevance.
    • Example: What was the most important impact of the Stamp Act on colonial resistance?
  • Level Three: Abstract and broader truths.
    • Asks students to consider broader truths outside the specific historical context.
    • Example: Do attempts to assert control over people who have been allowed freedom for a long period of time always lead to resistance?
  • Level One: What were the provisions of the Compromise of 1850?
  • Level Two: To what degree and in what ways did the Compromise of 1850 ultimately lead to increased sectional tension?
  • Level Three: Are attempts to compromise on moral issues ever successful?
  • Level One: What is a ‘lame-duck’ president?
  • Level Two: To what degree and in what ways did Theodore Roosevelt’s announcement that he would not seek reelection in 1908 compromise his ability to successfully enact his reform agenda in 1904?
  • Level Three: Does the 22nd amendment ensure that all two-term presidents will be less effective in their second term?

Presidential Listing

Critical Period: 1788-1815

  1. George Washington (1789-1797)

    • VP: John Adams
    • Party: None
    • Secretary of State: Thomas Jefferson
    • Secretary of Treasury: Alexander Hamilton
    • Secretary of War: Henry Knox
    • Major Items:
      • Judiciary Act (1789)
      • Tariff of 1789
      • Hamilton’s Financial Policies
        • National Bank
        • Funding National Debt at ‘par’
        • Assumption of State Debt
        • High Tariffs
      • Whiskey Rebellion (1799)
      • French Revolution (1793)
        • Neutrality
        • Citizen Genet
      • Eli Whitney Invents Cotton Gin (1793)
      • Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794)
      • Jay’s Treaty with England (1795)
      • Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain (1795)
      • Farewell Address (1796)
        • No ‘permanent’ alliances
        • No Political Parties
      • First Bank (1791 - 1811)

  2. John Adams (1797-1801)

    • VP: Thomas Jefferson
    • Party: Federalist
    • Major Items:
      • X,Y,Z Affair (1797)
      • War with France (Navy)
      • Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
        • Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1799)
        • Naturalization Act
      • “Midnight Judges” (1801)

  3. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)

    • VP: Aaron Burr
    • Party: Republican
    • Secretary of State: James Madison
    • Major Items:
      • Peaceful Transfer of Power
      • Barbary Pirates (1801-1805)
      • Marbury vs. Madison (1803)
      • Louisiana Purchase (1803)
      • Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-05)
      • 12th Amendment (1804)
      • Chesapeake & Leopard Affair (1807)
      • Embargo Act (1807)

  4. James Madison (1809-1817)

    • VP: George Clinton
    • Party: Republican
    • Secretary of State: James Monroe
    • Major Items:
      • Non-Intercourse Act (1809)
      • Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810)
      • Berlin and Milan Decrees
      • Orders in Council
      • “War Hawks” (1811-12)
      • Battle of Tippecanoe (1811)
      • War of 1812
      • Hartford Convention (1814)
      • Battle of New Orleans (1815)
      • First Protective Tariff (1816)
      • 2nd Charter for BUS (1816)
      • Nationalism
Era of Good Feelings/ Era of the Common Man: 1815 – 1840

  1. James Monroe (1817-1825)

    • VP: Daniel Thompkins
    • Party: Republican
    • Secretary of State: John Quincy Adams
    • Major Items:
      • Marshall’s Decisions:
        • McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819)
        • Dartmouth College Case (1819)
        • Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)
      • Factions within Republican Party Begin (1816 – 1828)
      • Rush-Bagot Amendment (1817)
      • Panic of 1819
      • The American System
      • Growth of Industry
      • Acquisition of Florida from Spain (1819)
      • Missouri Compromise (1820)
      • Monroe Doctrine (1823)
      • Sectional Tariff (1824)
      • Favorite Sons Election (Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Crawford and Clay) (1824)
      • The “Corrupted Bargain”

  2. John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)

    • VP: John C. Calhoun
    • Party: National Republicans
    • Secretary of State: Henry Clay
    • Major Items:
      • New York’s Erie Canal (1825)
      • Tariff of Abomination (1828)
      • Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest (1828)

  3. Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)

    • VP: John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Jacksonian Democracy
      • Spoils System
      • Manhood Suffrage
      • Two-Party System (Democrats and Whigs)
      • Rise of the “Third Party”
      • Peggy Eaton Affair
      • Indian Removal Act (1830)
      • Tariffs of 1832 and 1833
      • Nullification Crisis
      • The Second B. U. S. (due to expire in 1836)
      • Pet banks
      • Specie Circular (presidential order 1836)
      • Texas War of Independence (1836)
      • Formation of the Whig Party (1832)

  4. Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)

    • VP: Richard Johnson
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Panic of 1837
        • Over-speculating in land
        • Specie circular, no B.U.S.
        • Unsound financing by state governments
        • Failure of the wheat crops
        • British call in on foreign loans
      • Election of 1840 “Hard Cider and Log Cabins”
Antebellum Period

  1. William Henry Harrison (1841)

    • VP: John Tyler
    • Party: Whig
    • Secretary of State: Daniel Webster

  2. John Tyler (1841-1845)

    • Anti-Jackson Democrat ran as VP on Whig ticket
    • Secretary of State: Daniel Webster
    • Major Items:
      • Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)
      • Vetoes Clay’s Bill for 3rd B.U.S.
      • Canadian Border established on the 49th parallel
      • Annexes Texas (1845)

  3. James K. Polk (1845-1849)

    • VP: George Dallas
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Manifest Destiny
      • Oregon Boundary settled (1846)
      • Independent Treasury
      • Lower Tariffs
      • Mexican War (1845 - 1848)
      • California & Mexican Cession Added to Union
      • Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty (1848)
      • Wilmot Proviso (kept slavery out of the newly acquired territory)

  4. Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)

    • VP: Millard Fillmore
    • Party: Whig
    • Major Items:
      • California Gold Rush
      • Compromise of 1850
      • Free Soil Movement

  5. Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

    • Secretary of State: Daniel Webster
    • Party: Whig
    • Major Items:
      • Clayton Bulwer Treaty 1850
      • Seventh of March Speech (Daniel Webster)
      • Compromise of 1850 passes (Stephen Douglas)
      • Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

  6. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)

    • VP: William King
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854)
        • Popular sovereignty (Stephen Douglas)
      • Know Nothing Party & Republican Party (1854)
      • Japan opened to world trade (1853)
      • Gadsden Purchase (1853)
      • Underground Railroad
      • Bleeding Kansas
      • Ostend Manifesto (1854) desire for Cuba. Spain; offered 100,000,000100,000,000 in Ostend, Belgium
      • Charles Sumner & Preston Brooks (1856) – ‘hit him again!’

  7. James Buchanan (1857-1861)

    • VP: John C. Breckenridge
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Dred Scott Decision (1857) – 5th amendment
      • Lecompton Constitution (1857)
      • Lincoln- Douglas Debate (1858)
      • John Brown Raids Harpers Ferry (1859)

  8. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

    • VP: Hannibal Hamlin (1861) & Andrew Johnson (1865)
    • Party: Republican/Union
    • Secretary or State: William H Seward
    • Secretary of Treasury: Salmon P. Chase
    • Major Items:
      • Civil War (1861-1865)
      • Crittenden Compromise
      • Abuse of Executive Powers
      • Border States
      • Trent Affair (1861)
      • Antietam (1862)
      • Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
      • Gettysburg Address (1863)
      • Homestead Act (1862)
      • Morill Act (created agricultural colleges)
      • 10% Plan verses Wade-Davis Bill
      • Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)
      • Lincoln’s Assassination -April 14, 1865 (John Wilkes Booth)
Reconstruction: 1865-1877

  1. Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

    • Secretary of State: William H. Seward
    • Party: Republican
    • Major Items:
      • 13th Amendment (1865)
      • 14th Amendment (1868)
      • 15th Amendment (1870)
      • Reconstruction Act (1867)
      • Radical Republicans (Thaddeus Stevens & Charles Sumner)
      • Congressional Election of 1866 (Swing ‘round the Circle)
      • Civil Rights Act 1866
      • Tenure of Office Act (1867)
      • Impeachment Trial (1868)
      • Formation of KKK
      • Adoption of Black Codes
      • Sharecropping

  2. Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

    • VP: Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson
    • Secretary of State: Hamilton Fish
    • Party: Republican
    • Major Items:
      • First Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
      • Tweed Ring – Thomas Nast
      • Panic of 1873 – “Crime of ‘73”
      • Credit Mobilier – Union Pacific Railroad
      • Whiskey Ring
Gilded Age: 1877-1900

  1. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

    • VP: William Wheeler
    • Party: Republican
    • Major Items:
      • Compromise of 1877
      • Bland- Allison Act (1878) (free coinage of silver)
      • Troops withdrawn from South (1877)

  2. James A. Garfield (1881, March 4- September 19)

    • VP: Chester Arthur
    • Party: Republican (Half Breed)
    • Secretary of State: James Blaine
    • Major Items:
      • Garfield’s Assassination
        • Charles Julius Guiteau

  3. Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)

    • Party: Republican (Stalwart)
    • Secretary of State: James Blaine
    • Major Items:
      • Pendleton Act (1883) (civil service commission is set up)

  4. Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)

    • VP: Thomas Hendricks
    • Party: Democrat (1st since James Buchanan)
    • Major Items:
      • Knights of Labor (1886)
      • Haymarket Riot (1886)
      • Interstate Commerce Act (1886)
      • Washburn vs. Illinois (1886)
      • Laissez-faire Economics
      • Military Pensions (GAR)

  5. Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

    • VP: Levi Morton
    • Party: Republican
    • Secretary of State: James Blaine
    • Major Items:
      • Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
      • Populist Party Platform of 1892 ND, SD, MT, WA- 1889 states
      • Pan-American Conference (1889)
      • Idaho, Wyoming- 1890 states
      • McKinley Tariff (1890)
      • Sherman Act (1890)
      • Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

  6. Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)

    • Second Administration
    • VP: Adlai Stevenson
    • Party: Democrat
    • Major Items:
      • Panic of 1893
      • Hawaiian Incident (1893)
      • Venezuelan Boundary Affair (1895)
      • Pullman Strike (1894)
      • American Federation of Labor
      • Wilson- Gorman Tariff of 1894

  7. William McKinley (1897-1901)

    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Garet Hobart (1896- 1900), Theodore Roosevelt
    • Secretary of State: John Hay
    • Election of 1896 – Populists/Democrats (William Jennings Bryan)
    • Free Silver Issue (16:1) – Wizard of Oz
    • Major Items:
      • New Imperialism
      • Yellow journalism
      • Spanish- American War (1898)
      • Teller Amendment (1898)
      • Insular Cases (1901-1903)
      • Patt Amendment (1901) – Cuba becomes a Protectorate
      • Open Door Policy
      • Boxer Rebellion (1900)
      • McKinley’s Assassination -Leon Czolgosz (1901)
Progressive Age - WWI: 1900-1920

  1. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Charles Fairbanks
    • Secretary of State: John Hay, Elihu Root
    • Major Items:
      • Panama Canal (1903-1914)
      • “Square Deal”
      • Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904)
      • Portsmouth Treaty
      • Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan (1904)
      • Hague Conferences (1899 and 1907)
      • Russo – Japanese War (1904-1905)
      • Great White Fleet
      • Hepburn Act (1906)
      • Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act, and Muckrakers (1905)
      • Political Reforms of the Roosevelt Era
      • Trustbusting
      • Coal Strike (1901) – TR took side of labor!
      • Conservation
      • Venezuelan Debt Controversy (1902)
      • Dominican Republic crisis (1902-05)
      • Algerius Conference over Morocco (1906)
      • Scientific Management
      • The Muckrakers
      • Political Reform in Cities and States
      • The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
      • Conservation

  2. William H. Taft (1909-1913)

    • Republican
    • VP: James Sherman
    • Major Items:
      • Paine- Aldrich Tariff (1909)
      • Pinchot- Ballings (1909) (conservation, polygamy problem)
      • Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
      • Rise of the Socialist Party (Eugene V. Debs)
      • Dollar Diplomacy
      • The Lodge Corollary (1912)
      • Election of 1912 (Bull Moose Party)

  3. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

    • Democrat
    • VP: Thomas Marshall
    • Major Items:
      • “The New Freedom”
      • Underwood Tariff (1913)
      • 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Amendments
      • Moral Diplomacy
      • Federal Reserve System (1913)
      • Glassower Act (1913)
      • Federal Trade Commission (1914)
      • Clayton Anti- Trust Act (1914)
      • Troops to Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Virgin Islands, Mexico Sampico Incident (1914)
      • Pancho Villa
      • The Lusitania (May 1915) – Zimmerman Note
      • Child Labor Act (1916)
      • “Fourteen Points” (January 1917)
      • “Making the world safe for Democracy”
      • Treaty of Versailles (1919-1920)
      • Henry Cabot Lodge – 14 Reservations (opposes Article X of Treaty)
Roaring Twenties: 1920-1929

  1. Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)

    • “Dark Horse Candidate”
    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Calvin Coolidge
    • Secretary of State: Charles E. Hughes
    • Major Items:
      • Teapot Dome Scandal (Discovered after death) – oil reserves
      • Washington Conference (1921- 1922)
      • Fordney- McCumber Tariff (1922)
      • Pardons socialist leader Eugene Debs (1921)

  2. Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Charles Dawes
    • Secretary of State: Frank Kellogg
    • Major Items:
      • Silent Cal
      • The Dawes Plan (1924)
      • Kellogg- Briand Pact (1928)
      • “The business of America is business” the Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925)

  3. Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Charles Curtis
    • Secretary of State: Henry L. Stimson
    • Major Items:
      • National Origins Immigration Act (1929)
      • Panic and Depression Stock Market Crash (1929)
      • Hawley- Smoot Tariff (1930) – declaration of ‘economic war’
      • Debt moratorium (1931)
      • The Federal Farm Board (powers were enlarged)
      • Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC – 1932)
      • Boulder Dam
      • The Bonus Army March (1932) – Douglas MacArthur
      • The Stimson Doctrine (1932)
      • The 20th Amendment (1933)
The New Deal/ WWII: 1920-1945

  1. Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945)

    • Party: Democrat
    • VP: John Garner, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman
    • Major Items:
      • New Deal
      • The Three R’s: relief, recovery & reform
      • The First 100 Days (WPA, AAA, CCC, FDIC, HOLC, TVA, NRA)
      • Beer-Wine Act 1933
      • The Good-Neighbor Policy (1933)
      • Fireside Chats
      • The Social Security Act (1935)
      • The Demagogues (Huey ‘Kingfish’ Long)
      • Packing the Court (1937)
      • Formation of the C.I.O.
      • Roosevelt Recession 1937-1938
      • Keynesian Economics
      • The Dust Bowl Appeasement
      • Neutrality Act 1935, 1936, 1937 “Cash & Carry” (1939)
      • Selective Service Act (1940)
      • The Four Freedoms Speech (1941)
      • Lend-Lease Policy (1941)
      • The Atlantic Charter (1941)
      • Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7th 1941)
      • World War II 1941-1945
      • War Time Conferences (Casablanca, Tehran & Yalta)

  2. Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)

    • Party: Democrat
    • “The buck stops here!”
    • VP: Albern Barkley
    • Major Items:
      • Postdam Conference (1945)
      • World War II Ends- Atomic Bomb
      • The United Nations (1945)
      • Employment Act (1946)
      • Committee on Civil Rights (1946)
      • Taft- Hartley Act (1947)
      • Truman Doctrine (1947)
      • Marshall Plan (1947)
      • The Berlin Airlift (1948-1949)
      • Communist in China (1949 – Mao Zedong)
      • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (1949)
      • Satellite Nations (The Iron Curtain)
      • Containment – George F. Kennan
      • Korea (1950-53; Truman Vs. MacArthur)
      • “Fair Deal”
      • The baby Boom
      • Rise of the Sunbelt
The Cold War: 1945-1981

  1. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)

    • Party: Republican
    • VP: Richard Nixon
    • Secretary of State: John Foster Dulles
    • Major Items:
      • 22nd Amendment
      • Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas
      • Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.)
      • Rise of Consumerism (Television comes of age)
      • Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
      • Interstate Highway System (1956)
      • Dulles’ Diplomacy – Brinkmanship
      • “more bang for the buck”
      • Suez Crisis (1956)
      • Eisenhower Doctrine
      • The Race for Space (sputnik)
      • The U2 Incident
      • Military-industrial complex
      • Alaska and Hawaii become states (1959)
      • The Kitchen Debates – Nixon v. Khrushchev

  2. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)

    • Democrat
    • VP: Lyndon B. Johnson
    • Secretary of State: Robert McNamara
    • Major Items:
      • Television Debates verses Nixon
      • The New Frontier
      • Camelot
      • The Berlin Wall(Ich bin ein Berliner)
      • Flexible Response
      • Alliance For Progress
      • Baker vs. Carr The Peace Corps
      • Bay of Pigs
      • Cuban Missile Crisis
      • Nuclear Test- Ban Treaty Kennedy assassinated at Dallas, Texas -(November 22, 1963) Lee Harvey Oswald

  3. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1968)

    • Democrat
    • VP: Hubert Humphrey (2nd Term)
    • Secretary of State: Robert McNamara
    • Major Items:
      • The “Cold War”
      • Cuban Policy
      • Income Tax Cut
      • Wesberry vs. Sanders (1964)
      • Civil Rights Act (1964)
      • War on Poverty
      • Anti-Poverty Act (1964)
      • Elementary and Secondary Education Medicare
      • “Great Society”
      • Counter-Revolution (Student movements)
      • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
      • The Vietnam War (1966-1975)
      • Hawks v. Doves
      • Tet Offensive (1968)
      • Democratic Convention in Chicago (1968)
      • The Return of Nixon
Détente / Glasnost & Perestroika: (1968-1992)

  1. Richard M. Nixon (1968-1974)

    • Republican
    • VP: Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford
    • Secretary of State: Henry Kissinger
    • Major Items:
      • “Imperial Presidency” New Federalism – Law & Order President
      • Southern Strategy (silent majority)
      • Landing on the Moon (July 1969)
      • Warren Burger- Chief Justice Woodstock (August 1969)
      • Vietnamization – Victory with Honor
      • Cambodia Bombings (Kent State 1970)
      • E.P.A. established (1970)
      • 26th Amendment (1971)
      • Visit to China (February 1972)
      • Visit to Russia (May 1972)
      • SALT (1972) Kissinger- “Shuttle Diplomacy” (1973- 75)
      • The Burger Court (Woe v. Wade 1973)
      • Wounded Knee, S. D. (1973)
      • Allende regime in Chile- CIA (September 1973)
      • Agnew resigns (1973)
      • Watergate Scandal War Powers Act 1973
      • Nixon resigns (August 9, 1974)
      • Pentagon Papers (August 30, 1971) - Superior Court to allow NY Times to publish

  2. Gerald Ford (1974- 1976)

    • Republican
    • 1st Appointed President
    • VP: Nelson Rockefeller
    • *neither President, nor VP had been elected
    • Major Items:
      • Pardons Nixon O.P.E.C. Crisis (1974)
      • Fall of Saigon 1975
      • Genocide in Cambodia

  3. Jimmy Carter (1976- 1980)

    • Democrat
    • VP: Walter Mondale
    • Major Items:
      • Panama Canal Treaty signed (September 1977)
      • Established diplomatic relations with Communist China; ended recognition with Taiwan
      • 3 Mile Island Incident (PA) nuclear leak (March 1979)
      • Camp David Accords 1978 -Egypt and Israel peace treaty; Sadat and Begin
      • Iran Hostage Crisis (1979) – 444 Days -rescue attempt- 8 killed
      • Se