Directions and timing
This is the written part of the full-length practice exam. It has two sections. Section I, Part B is three short-answer questions in 40 minutes. All three are required, and each uses a different period and source type: a secondary-source-style text, a primary-source-style text, and a non-text source. Section II is 1 hour 40 minutes: about 60 minutes for the document-based question (DBQ), including a 15-minute reading and planning period, and about 40 minutes for the long essay question (LEQ). Work under a visible timer, write your responses in full, and do not look at the scoring guidance until you are finished.
How to pace the short-answer questions
Give yourself about 13 minutes per question. Parts (a) and (b) are quick: one clear, accurate sentence each, with a specific fact rather than a restated label. Part (c) is where the point is usually won or lost, because it asks you to explain. Name a specific example, then state the mechanism that links it to the source. A generic statement such as "people were concerned" earns nothing; naming the reform or event and saying how it connects does.
How to approach the DBQ
- Spend the first 15 minutes reading and planning. Read the prompt twice, mark the command term ("evaluate the extent"), and note the time period.
- Group the documents into two or three categories that serve your argument, such as coerced versus negotiated arrangements, rather than summarizing them one by one.
- Write a defensible thesis that takes a position and gives a line of reasoning. "To a large extent, because... although..." is a reliable pattern.
- Contextualize broadly with a sentence or two on the wider developments before and around the period, not a restatement of the prompt.
- Use at least six documents to support your argument, and for at least two of them explain the sourcing (point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience) and say why it matters.
- Bring in one piece of specific outside evidence that is not in the documents.
- Earn complexity by qualifying your argument with a real tension, contrast, or exception, using evidence, not a throwaway "however."
How to approach the LEQ
Spend about five minutes planning. The 90-second evidence dump printed under the prompt is a model of how to start: list specific evidence you could use, then choose the strongest items. Write a thesis that answers the question and previews your reasoning, contextualize broadly, support the argument with at least two specific pieces of evidence, explain how that evidence supports your claim, and organize the essay around the reasoning (here a cause-and-effect or evaluation argument), not around a list of events. Leave time to add a complexity point, such as a counterexample or a second causal factor, before you stop.
Scoring yourself
After you finish, use the rubric rows attached to each question to give yourself a score for each point, and read the scoring walkthrough and acceptable examples that follow. Be honest about partial credit: a point is earned only when the response does exactly what the row describes. Then compare your result against your multiple-choice performance in Practice Exam 2: Multiple Choice, and note which skills (evidence use, sourcing, comparison, causation) need more work before the next exam.