Chapter 5
In This Chapter
● Making Document-Based Questions work for you
● Reading and interpreting documents under pressure
● Using the proof, analysis, and thesis (PAT) method
● Bringing in outside information for a higher score
● Writing the DBQ essay to make it grader-friendly
Depending on your level of preparation, the Document-Based Question (DBQ, for short) that appears on every AP U.S. History exam is either a beautiful chance for selfexpression or a wordy invitation to the Dark Side. The sad truth is that most people who take the big test don’t do as well as they could on the DBQ because they get freaked out by the detail.
Using the proof, analysis, and thesis (PAT) method introduced in this chapter (see the section “Practicing the DBQ”), you can prepare for DBQs. PAT is the essay-writing system that has what teachers look for: You use history with analysis to support a clear idea. You don’t freak out; you laugh happily because you know how to blend the detail that the College Board gives you on the DBQ with outside information. To score high on the DBQ, you must create a thesis, analyze the documents as they relate to your thesis, and bring in outside evidence that supports your thesis.
Using Documents Like a Historian
Ever wonder what being a historian would feel like? The Document-Based Question is your chance to write history from primary sources, just like the famous professors in their ivy-covered towers. After bravely hacking your way through the 80 multiple-choice questions in Section I, you return from your all-too-short 10-minute break to face Section II, the free-response questions.
Free response doesn’t mean you’re free to write anything you want. You’re free to write essays about what the AP tells you; you’re not just picking among multiple choices. The DBQ essay comes first. On the DBQ, you combine what you know about history with what you can pull from a supplied set of documents to answer an assigned question. After you finish the DBQ, you choose two additional regular essays from four available topics. You discover more about the regular essays in Chapter 6.
Part II: Answering the Questions: Three Kinds, Three Strategies
History is what a people chooses to remember to explain who they are. The historian’s job is to make sure what people remember is facts interpreted in as honest a manner as their current understanding of the world allows. History doesn’t come from wizards with long white beards; it comes from scholars working patiently with primary source material to provide accurate facts plus reasonable analysis and interpretation. That’s what you’re going to do on the DBQs, just like a big-time historian.
On the test, you’ll confront one interesting analysis question from an important period in U.S. history. To help build your essay on that question, you’ll receive a set of eight to ten primary source documents. These documents could be letters, news reports, political cartoons, financial reports, pictures, diary entries, charts, graphs, love notes — almost anything you can get on paper. Your essay for the DBQ needs to combine your interpretation of the supplied documents with outside history facts you remember about the period and topic in question. You’re the History Judge.
You may not feel like you’re ready to be Judge Judy for everything that ever happened in U.S. history, but the DBQ is a good place to be as smart as you can. This is the most important essay on the AP exam; your score on the DBQ makes up 22.5 percent of your final grade. And remember, the AP U.S. History exam is graded on the curve. To get a 4 or a 5 as your final grade, you don’t have to have a perfect score — just one that’s better than the scores of most other AP test takers.
You have a chance to get ahead of the pack on the DBQ because people tend to wimp out on this question due to lack of organization. All essays on the AP are scored on a scale from 0 for awful to 9 for the rare perfect composition. The average score on the DBQ in recent years has been a pathetic 3 on the 9 scale. You can do better than that, and when you do, you’ll feel your final score giving you a high five.
Knowing the Criteria for Scoring Big on the DBQ
The AP wants you to think, not just memorize. For that reason, the highest scores on the DBQ go to students who have developed a clear thesis or way of understanding the era of their assigned documents. Here are the guidelines for scoring on Section II, Question 1 (the DBQ). Scores range from a high of 9 to a low of 0.
The 8-to-9 essay:
● Contains a well-developed thesis that may explain most of the changes within the DBQ era
● Supports the thesis with an effective analysis of economic and social trends
● Effectively uses a substantial number of documents
● Supports or proves the thesis with substantial (ideally, 50 percent) and relevant outside information
● May contain minor errors
● Is clearly organized and well written
● Scores: Only a few hundred students — about a tenth of 1 percent — get a 9. A few thousand — still less than 1 percent — get an 8
The 5-to-7 essay:
● Contains a thesis that explains many of the changes within the era Has a limited analysis of the information supporting the thesis Effectively uses some documents
● Supports the thesis with some outside information for proof
● May have some errors that don’t seriously get in the way of main essay points
● Shows acceptable organization and writing; language errors don’t stop understanding
● Scores: Fewer than 2 percent of test takers get a score of 7; around 4 percent get a score of 6; and 10 percent score a 5
The 2-to-4 essay:
● Contains a limited or undeveloped thesis
● Lacks analysis and deals with questions in a simplistic way
● Just parrots back a laundry list of documents
● Contains little outside information or information that’s wrong
● May contain substantial factual errors
● Is either poorly organized or poorly written
● Scores: Unfortunately, these scores are the most common. About 18 percent of test takers get a 4; around 30 percent get a 3 (3.16 is the average DBQ score); and 27 percent get a pathetic 2
The 0-to-1 essay:
● Lacks a thesis or just restates the question
● Shows the student doesn’t really understand the question
● Shows the test taker has little understanding of the documents or just ignores them
● Contains no outside information
● Contains wrong information
● Badly written
● Scores: 7 percent of test takers get a 1; about half a percent get a 0; and another half a percent get nothing because they apparently drifted off before they got to the DBQ
Practicing the DBQ
As you know, BBQ stands for barbecue, which is lots of fun unless you’re on the grill. Think of the Document-Based Question, often shortened to DBQ, as being sort of a BBQ for your mind. The DBQ is lots of fun as long as you stay away from the heat and enjoy the party. In this section, I first give you pointers on how to set up your answer. Then I give you a sample question based on Reconstruction in the South (see Chapter 14 for more information). Finally, I present tips on answering the sample question and tell you how to apply the proof, analysis, and thesis (PAT) method when writing your answer.
To write a winning answer for any DBQ, you first have to understand the question. Understanding the question is where a sadly large number of DBQers go wrong, so that’s where you need start to go right. PAT can help in that regard, and the following steps explain how. I suggest you consider and follow these steps to prepare yourself before writing your answer (or even reading the question).
1. Start sweeping the cobwebs of your brain for proof, or proofreading, which is the beginning of the PAT system.
Don’t even read the documents until you have taken a sober inventory of what you know about the question. Don’t worry — you’ll remember more as you go. Just note on the green question book every event and theme you can think of off the top of your head.
2. Read the documents twice; on the second round, circle words within the documents that you may want to refer to in your essay.
3. Do a little analysis — Step 2 in the PAT method.
What are some points you want to make about the question, and how does the information you have support these points? Jot quick notes in the green book.
When you’re looking for space to write in the green book, don’t skip ahead to read the other regular essays. Deal with the regular essays when you get to them; you have no reason to get distracted now. I tell you all about writing the regular essays in Chapter 6.
4. At thesis time — the final step and solid foundation in the PAT approach — you argue your thesis with analysis, using one major point in each body paragraph.
State your thesis in the first paragraph and restate it (with proof) in the last paragraph.
Take a stand! It doesn’t matter whether you’re wrong; historians love to argue. A clear thesis stops a bored reader dead in her tracks and makes her pay attention to your analysis and proof. Your thesis provides a philosophy or road map for everything in your essay. In the Reconstruction example shown in the next section, the thesis could be “the South’s resistance was too strong for Reconstruction to work” or “the North succeeded in changing a primitive slave society in the South into the beginnings of a modern, if racist, culture.”
The benefit of structuring your DBQ argument under the PAT system is that you don’t have to be right to win; you are the judge of history. The fact that you can corral evidence and use proof and analysis to support a clear thesis makes you a contender for a high score. And you don’t have to be very high to get above the average score of 3; just keep citing proof. A good paper successfully uses three pieces of proof in each body paragraph, taken from a mix of outside information and document analysis. Most DBQs are presented in chronological order. Because you’ll arrange your essay by analysis points, you probably won’t cite the documents in letter order, and your essay won’t look like a laundry list. Just remember to use every document that fits into your analysis; it’s even okay if you don’t use them all.
Defend your point, but don’t get too creative. Remember, your brave reader may be getting a little blurry from reading hundreds of versions of the same essay that you’re writing. Don’t confuse him. State your thesis clearly and simply. Cite lots of documents (with document letters bracketed) and underline your outside evidence. Stick to one major thesis; don’t try to snow the reader with a bunch of mini-concepts. Your test scorer is looking for analysis and proof, and he doesn’t have much time to find it. Don’t just rewrite the textbook; make sure the facts you use prove your analysis and thesis points.
See “Answering the Reconstruction DBQ” later in this chapter to see how to apply PAT to the following Reconstruction sample question.
Sample Document-Based Question:
The Reconstruction
Here’s a DBQ like the one that a third of a million students like you will be answering on the upcoming AP U.S. History exam. As you read it, remember that you have 15 minutes to read the material and 45 minutes to write your answer on the real test. The documents are original source material, so they contain some misspelling and bad grammar — hey, that’s the way people talked back then.
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A through F and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. Only essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period will earn high scores.
1. Discuss the experience of Reconstruction in the South following the Civil War. What factors influenced the lives of the people affected by Reconstruction in both the South and the North? How did Reconstruction change over time, and what motivated these changes?
Document A
Source: Letter from black Union soldiers June 1865]
Genl We the soldiers of the 36 U.S.Col Regt Humbly petition to you to alter the Affairs at Roanoke Island. We have served in the US Army faithfully and don our duty to our Country, for which we thank God (that we had the opportunity) but at the same time our family’s are suffering at Roanoke Island N.C.
1 When we were enlisted in the service we were prommised that our wifes and family’s should receive rations from goverment. The rations for our wifes and family’s have been (and are now cut down) to one half the regular ration. Consequently three or four days out of every ten days, thee have nothing to eat. at the same time our ration’s are stolen from the ration house by Mr Streeter the Asst Supt at the Island (and others) and sold while our family’s are suffering for some thing to eat.
2nd Mr Steeter the Ass* Sup* of Negro aff’s at Roanoke Island is a througher Cooper head a man who says that he is no part of a Abolitionist. takes no care of the colored people and has no Simpathy with the colored people. A man who kicks our wives and children out of the ration house or commissary, he takes no notice of their actual suffering and sells the rations and allows it to be sold, and our family’s suffer for something to eat.
Document B
Source: Andrew Johnson vetoing the Reconstruction Act of 1867
It is plain that the authority here given to the military officer amounts to absolute despotism. But to make it still more unendurable, the bill provides that it may be delegated to as many subordinates as he chooses to appoint, for it declares that he shall “punish or cause to be punished.”
Such a power has not been wielded by any monarch in England for more than five hundred years. In all that time no people who speak the English language have borne such servitude.
It reduces the whole population of the ten States — all persons, of every color, sex, and condition, and every stranger within their limits — to the most abject and degrading slavery. No master ever had a control so absolute over the slaves as this bill gives to the military officers over both white and colored persons.
Document C
Source: Charles Sumner on the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868
I would not in this judgment depart from that moderation which belongs to the occasion; but God forbid that, when called to deal with so great an offender, I should affect a coldness which I cannot feel. Slavery has been our worst enemy, assailing all, murdering our children, filling our homes with mourning, and darkening the land with tragedy; and now it rears its crest anew, with Andrew Johnson as its representative. Through him it assumes once more to rule the Republic and to impose its cruel law. The enormity of his conduct is aggravated by his bare faced treachery. He once declared himself the Moses of the colored race. Behold him now the Pharaoh. With such treachery in such a cause there can be no parley. Every sentiment, every conviction, every vow against slavery must now be directed against him. Pharaoh is at the bar of the Senate for judgment.
Document D
Source: Ulysses S. Grant’s first inaugural address, 1869
The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions will come before it for settlement in the next four years which preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained.
This requires security of person, property, and free religious and political opinion in every part of our common country, without regard to local prejudice. All laws to secure these ends will receive my best efforts for their enforcement.
Document E
Source: Blanche K. Bruce, Black Senator Temporarily Elected under Reconstruction, Speech in the Senate, 1876
The evidence in hand and accessible will show beyond peradventure that in many parts of the State corrupt and violent influences were brought to bear upon the registrars of voters, thus materially affecting the character of the voting or poll lists; upon the inspectors of election, prejudicially and unfairly thereby changing the number of votes cast; and, finally, threats and violence were practiced directly upon the masses of voters in such measures and strength as to produce grave apprehensions for their personal safety and as to deter them from the exercise of their political franchises.
It will not accord with the laws of nature or history to brand colored people a race of cowards. On more than one historic field, beginning in 1776 and coming down to this centennial year of the Republic, they have attested in blood their courage as well as a love of liberty —
I ask Senators to believe that no consideration of fear or personal danger has kept us quiet and forbearing under the provocations and wrongs that have so sorely tried our souls. But
feeling kindly toward our white fellow-citizens, appreciating the good purposes and politics of the better classes, and, above all, abhorring a war of races. we determined to wait until such time as an appeal to the good sense and justice of the American people could be made.
Document F
Source: Nat Crippens, black historian after Reconstruction, 1880-1965
Until the civil rights movement overturned systematic segregation, thousands of African Americans and other minorities were brutally maimed or killed by white vigilantes taking the law into their hands. Established law, which codified white supremacy, failed to protect the civil rights of black citizens. In the end, white segregation rested on open violence.
At the turn of the century, lynchings occurred every week, and most of the victims, denied the due process of courts, were innocent of the charges held against them. Some were not even accused of having committed a crime.
Answering the Reconstruction DBQ
The secret to successful DBQ essays is using both the documents presented and relevant outside information from the period covered by the documents. To do this successfully, you need to have a plan. That plan includes the PAT method for scoring high on essay questions (see the next section).
First, the proof. The green question book that contains your essay challenges and documents is also the place for you to make notes during the AP exam. Use the pink essay-writing booklet only for your essays; make notes in the green question book.
Read the DBQ question twice. The second time through, carefully circle the key words in the assignment:
1. Discuss the (experience of Reconstruction)in the South following the Civil War. What factors influenced the (lives of the people) affected by Reconstruction in both (the South) (and the North? How did Reconstruction(change over time, and what motivated)these changes?
Before you even read the documents, make notes in the green question book about themes and events you remember from this period. You’re going to use these happenings as proof to support the thesis that forms the backbone of your DBQ essay. You’re wise to record your outside history knowledge before the documents distract you from what you already know.
Now read the documents. Circle the most important points in each primary source. You’ll weave references to these documents throughout your essay. Your writing, however, is not a shopping-list description of the documents. For maximum impact, base your essay on a thesis, analyzed in at least three main points and defended with proof from your outside history knowledge and the documents.
Using PAT for a good DBQ
Sailing along under the PAT method (discussed earlier in this chapter), you first marshaled your proof in the form of PES (political events plus economic and social trends; see Chapter 1). So you just do the PAT with the PES. (You’re probably sick of acronyms!)
How to be a brain-fight referee
Historians like to argue about events and trends that are old enough to have developed some proof. Can't decide who should win the next election? That's nothing to a historian; we're still arguing about the causes of World War I. You need to remember two things about the person who grades your DBQ:
1. She'll be overwhelmed by piles of tests.
2. She'll be a historian.
When historians don't agree about causes (which is usually), they love to argue about trends and documents. For extra credit with your historian-grader, join in the brain fight by defining your terms clearly.
Another good trick is admitting that the other side may have a point counter to your thesis and then destroying that point with analysis. This method is the straw-man argument. Don't think that you need to neglect documents that seem to run counter to your thesis. You can deal with seemingly contrary proof through analysis and
gain extra historian street cred. If your grader slows down long enough to notice, a historian is always happy when you analyze the documents by date, author, and any indication of how the author's date and bias fit into an ongoing cultural trend.
Don't reach for facts you're unsure of. When a teacher is grading lots of papers fast, he'll naturally glory in finding a fact that's completely wrong. Unfortunately for the test taker, teachers celebrate finding a giant error by clamping on a major decrease in score. If you're not sure of a name or year, use a generality such as the president or around this time. Never quote directly from a document; summarize.
Historians have bad memories too. In gatherings of old historians, you'll typically hear someone say, "You know that guy — the father of our country . . ." The other historians don't even try to remember the name. They just say, "Oh, yeah. That guy."
After you have your outside history knowledge written down and your document proof circled in the green book, you’re ready to proceed to an analysis of the question; this produces your thesis. Read the question one last time, paying careful attention to the words you circled.
For the Reconstruction question, your thesis may be
The North’s initially tough Reconstruction rules provided some protection for blacks in the South but caused a violent reaction from white Southerners threatened by change. Northerners with their own political agendas were unwilling to maintain strict Reconstruction. In 1877, 12 years after the end of the Civil War, the last Northern troops were withdrawn from the South, leaving Southern blacks free but segregated, with little political or economic opportunity.
This thesis becomes the first paragraph of your five-or six-paragraph DBQ essay. The second paragraph could talk about the angry retribution with which the North applied Reconstruction immediately after the Civil War. It could show that the North came within one vote of impeaching its own Union President after Andrew Johnson opposed tough measures by the Radical Republicans.
You should cite documents clearly in brackets, like this:
After the war, even black Union soldiers who had fought bravely were treated badly in the South by their own officers [Document A].
Bracket all references to documents, but don’t waste time copying the titles of the documents. The reader who grades your essay is an expert on this specific DBQ question; she has seen thousands of essays on this year’s DBQ, and she knows the document letters by heart. (See the nearby sidebar “Grading the AP U.S. History exam.”)
Grading the AP U.S. History exam
During one week in June of each year, more than 1,000 determined history teachers and professors gather at a college, usually in Texas, to grade 1 million AP U.S. History essays. About one-third of a million students take this test—the largest single-subject College Board (CB) test in the world. Each student who doesn't pass out from the strain writes three essays, and all of these 1 million essays must be graded by hand.
If the teachers grade 1,000 essays each and spend 2 minutes reading and scoring each essay, the job will take them 33 hours of solid work. With training, consultation, and occasional trips to the buffet, that's a very full week. Some of the most experienced graders arrive early to serve as coordinators. These super-specialists develop specific criteria for each of the five exam questions. Coordinators and regular graders specialize in only one question; they learn the grading criteria for their question and stick to it.
The upside to this specialization is that each of your essays will be read by a different, custom-trained person who is guaranteed not to be mad at you for something your big brother did two years ago. The downside is that if you're blowing smoke, your grader has seen it all a hundred times before. Leaders double-check a random sample of each grader's work to keep the grading consistent and fair.
Even as hard as they try, graders can make mistakes. If you're sure you've been given a much lower score than you deserve, you can pay the CB a few bucks to have an independent reader rescore your test. Strangely, no one has yet complained about getting too high a score.
Even machines can make mistakes. The CB recently paid millions of dollars in damages after a scanning machine gave A students Fscores because the answer sheets had gotten wet. But in general, the CB deserves high fives for hanging in there with a heavy load. If you've ever tried to grade even a small pile of hand-written essays, try to imagine what grading 1,000 would be like. That's why you bracket your document citations and underline important information. Help the grader see your strong points!
Don’t analyze the documents like a laundry list. Weave your document evidence throughout your essay on Reconstruction as proof of your thesis. Some documents require explanation to show that you understand them. You’re trying to show that you can analyze an era by using primary source documents, not just proving that you can read by spouting back what the documents say. You need to do more than just quote the documents to get a good score on the DBQ.
Bringing in outside proof
For this Reconstruction DBQ, you want to mention as outside proof the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery and gave equal protection of the law and the vote to all males. In economics, Reconstruction saw the end of the Southern plantation economy and the beginning of sharecropping. The North’s industrial base continued to grow, and its own economy drew Northern attention away from trouble in the South. The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 didn’t actually overturn Black Code laws in the South; the Supreme Court limited the application of this early civil-rights legislation to only national laws. Southern states later adopted Jim Crow laws to further limit the rights of blacks.
Here’s more outside information: Under early Reconstruction rules, former slaves — but not Confederate leaders — could vote in Southern state elections. Southern blacks helped pass important social legislation, including the establishment of public schools for all citizens. After the Southern states officially rejoined Union, local white officials made their own laws and quickly found ways to keep blacks from voting. President Hayes agreed to withdraw all troops from the South in 1877 as part of a deal to win a disputed election. The Ku Klux Klan and other groups orchestrated repressive violence against blacks in the South. In reaction to what it viewed as harsh Reconstruction pushed by Republicans, the Solid South voted Democratic for 80 years until after World War II.
The length of a DBQ response should be five or six paragraphs. The first paragraph states the thesis; the last paragraph reiterates thesis and proof. The middle paragraphs provide point-by-point analysis, supported by document citations and outside information. Underline the names of all outside information and dates, like this: Solid South, Civil Rights Bill of 1866, Jim Crow. This method helps make sure that test graders clearly see the outside information you’re submitting. Test readers score so many essays so quickly that they have only a minute to see information you’ve spent months absorbing.