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  • Roosevelt and the Revolutionary New Deal

Prompt: How “revolutionary” was the New Deal? Evaluate the significant changes that it brought and determine how different the nation became because of it.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was the ultimate reform movement, providing bold reform without bloodshed or revolution. Although many Americans criticized President Roosevelt for his “try anything” approach and wasteful spending, Roosevelt saved the American system of free enterprise by stepping in and actually doing something to help the unemployed, starving masses during the Great Depression. Before Roosevelt was elected, the gap between the haves and have-nots was ever-widening and the country probably would have experienced a revolution if another laissez-faire president like Hoover had been elected in 1932. When Roosevelt was elected, he created a series of reforms to deal with the countless problems in American society; many failed, though some achieved long-lasting success and exist to this day. The New Deal was the ultimate “revolution” providing lasting reforms like Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act, and establishing precedents that continue to shape the lives of millions of Americans to this day.

Roosevelt was a radical president in many ways, expanding Federal power and establishing numerous precedents that have served to empower the federal government ever since. Unlike previous presidents, Roosevelt believed that the American government had an obligation to help its citizens in a crisis. Roosevelt also felt that doing anything was better than doing nothing and he was criticized frequently for this. Nonetheless, most of his “alphabet agencies” served their purposes and provided immediate rather than long-term relief to over nine million desperate Americans. He started by creating the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, which provided employment in government camps for three million young men. These men served doing useful, but (some would say) unnecessary tasks like reforesting, firefighting, draining swamps, and controlling floods. The Works Progress Administration, or WPA, was another extremely helpful agency during the Depression, putting $11 million dollars into public buildings, bridges, and hard-surfaced roads, creating millions of new jobs. To the American people who were used to coming into contact with the government only at the post office and on other infrequent occasions, Roosevelt’s system was ground-breaking; never before had the government intervened to help farmers in need (AAA), or homeowners struggling with mortgages (HOLC), or families starving during the winter (CWA). Roosevelt had no uncertainties or misgivings about the use of Federal money to help Americans. If the U.S. government would not help its own citizens, then who would? Roosevelt also made other revolutionary changes with his New Deal.

The plight of the worker had always been of concern to Roosevelt, and he did much during his time as president to improve overall working conditions. Firstly, Roosevelt set up the National Recovery Administration, or NRA, to assist labor unions in their struggle against greedy corporations. The NRA, for the first time in American history, guaranteed the right for labor union members to choose their own representatives in bargaining. The Fair Labor Standards Act, or “Wages and Hours Bill”, established maximum hours of labor, minimum wages, and forbid children under the age of sixteen from working. By limiting the number of hours a single worker could work, Roosevelt created new jobs and improved the working conditions for existing workers. Roosevelt was one of the first Presidents to earnestly fight for the rights of the average worker. The Fair Labor Standards Act is still in use today (though the monetary values have been increased to account for seventy years of inflation), and unions still have the rights that Roosevelt guaranteed to them with the NRA. Roosevelt, it seemed, went out of his way to ensure that workers were treated fairly and given their due rights. Roosevelt’s crowning achievement to Americans was the Social Security Act, which he signed in 1935, creating the pension, insurance for the old-aged, the blind, the physically handicapped, delinquent, and other dependents by taxing employees and employers; in essence, Americans were providing for their own futures. Social Security still exists today, and though some people oppose it, it no doubt provides a valuable service to people unable to care for themselves—which was Roosevelt’s strong point: appealing to the “forgotten man”. However, he had yet another lasting achievement that truly revolutionized America.

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, it became apparent that speculation and overselling stocks and bonds were key causes of the crash. Roosevelt passed the Federal Securities Act to encourage honesty during the sale of stocks and bonds; promoters were required to transmit to the investor sworn information regarding the soundness of their investments. While many crooked businessmen hated Roosevelt for this, many historians argue that his wise actions saved the American system from untimely demise. With the passage of this Act, Roosevelt encouraged fairer trading and less speculation, which ultimately revitalized the American economy.

Roosevelt was a revolutionary for his time. He challenged the accepted role of government in society by intervening to improve the quality of life for countless Americans. Though his actions were controversial, it is clear that they had a positive effect on American society. Ultimately, though, it would take World War II to lift the American economy out of the Great Depression; Roosevelt’s New Deal served to satisfy the American people’s demands for action until America joined the war in 1941.

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Acing the Document Based Question on the AP US History Exam

apush new deal dbq essay

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Taking the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) exams and accompanying coursework while you’re in high school is a great way to demonstrate your academic skill and prepare for college coursework. If you do well on your AP exams, those high scores will be valuable assets when it comes time for you to apply to college.

One of the most popular AP exams is AP United States History , which was taken by nearly half a million high school students in 2016. This exam consists of 55 multiple-choice questions, four short-answer questions, a longer essay with a choice of two prompts, and a special type of essay question: the Document Based Question, or DBQ.

The DBQ doesn’t have to be intimidating, but you may not be familiar with its expectations, so it pays to get well acquainted with its format beforehand. Read on to learn what to expect from the AP US History DBQ, as well as some advice for getting prepared for this type of question and formulating your plan of attack for test day.

AP US History: a brief introduction

As its title indicates, the AP US History exam and its accompanying course curriculum deal with the history of the now-United States, starting in the 1490s with the arrival of European colonists and extending until the present day. It covers not only events and people from this time and place, but also broader historical trends that have shaped US history.

In its role as an Advanced Placement course, AP US History exists not only to teach you historical facts, but to help you understand how to approach and analyze historical content in the way that college-level courses will eventually expect you to be able to do. The AP US History exam is intended to test your skill at this type of analysis, and the DBQ is an important part of this assessment.   

While many students take AP US History courses at their high schools in preparation for the exam, you can also study for the exam independently. Check out our blog posts Which AP Should I Self-Study? and The Ultimate Guide to Self-Studying AP Exams for more information about whether and how to self-study for this and other AP exams.  

Since AP US History is so popular, there’s no shortage of study guides and other preparatory materials for this exam on the market. However, you should be aware that in 2015, this exam was updated, and some significant changes were made in how it approaches historical material.

When you’re studying on your own, either instead of or in addition to taking an AP course at your high school, seek out materials specific to this most recent version of the test. Older study materials will no longer be accurate.

For CollegeVine’s overview of this exam, take a look at our Ultimate Guide to the US History AP Exam . You can also find a very detailed overview of the exam and curriculum in the official College Board AP United States History Course and Exam Description, available on the College Board’s website .

What is the Document Based Question?

The DBQ is the first of two essay questions you’ll face on the AP US History exam. Unlike the other essay question, in which you’ll choose between two essay prompts that rely heavily upon your memory of the course content, the DBQ asks you to answer a question with specific reference to a number of documents that are provided for you within the exam booklet.

You’ll be given 55 minutes to complete the DBQ. It’s recommended that you spend 15 minutes reading the documents and planning your essay, and the remaining 40 minutes writing. Your DBQ score will account for 25% of your overall score on the exam.

In requiring you to analyze primary and secondary sources on your own, the DBQ mimics the work that professional historians do in assessing historical documents. This is how the AP US History exam determines how well you’ve acquired not only historical facts, but methods of approaching the study of history.

The documents provided for the DBQ will vary a great deal from year to year and topic to topic. Most of them will be the type of written sources you’re used to seeing in history classes, such as letters, speech transcripts, newspaper articles, or passages from scholarly works.

However, the term “document” is used broadly here, and the documents you’re given could also include such diverse sources as song lyrics, graphs of data, maps, political cartoons, or photographs. You’ll have to be ready to tease meaning out of whatever type of source you’re given.

The DBQ’s documents will provide you with a lot of useful information, which can make writing your essay easier in certain ways—you won’t be coming into this essay trying to work from memory alone. On the other hand, the more complicated format and high expectations of the DBQ can present some unique challenges.

For one thing, you’ll still need to employ a great deal of the knowledge you accrued in your  AP US History course or self-studying experience. You’ll be expected to understand the various historical contexts in which your documents were created, the events and issues they reference, and the possible impact of authorial biases on their composition.

Practically speaking, writing a successful DBQ essay requires you to read, comprehend, and assimilate into your larger historical understanding a number of new and unfamiliar pieces of information within a very short period of time. This can be done, but it’s not an easy task.

Also, as we’ll go over in greater detail below, the DBQ has high expectations. While the question in the test booklet will come with a long list of specific, stated requirements in terms of what you need to address and how, you’ll also need to come into the test being already familiar with the goals and standards of the AP US History curriculum.

How is the DBQ evaluated?

The AP US History DBQ is always designed to test a certain set of skills that it considers essential to historical study. The readers will judge your essay upon how well it demonstrates solid argumentation, analysis of evidence, contextualization, and synthesis.

In addition to these skills, each year’s DBQ requires test-takers to demonstrate understanding of one additional theme from a set provided by the College Board. The DBQ you receive will focus either on historical causation, patterns of continuity and change over time, comparison, interpretation, or periodization.

Aside from these factors, a successful DBQ response will fully address the question that you’ve been asked, which can sometimes be complex or have multiple components. In composing your essay, you’ll need to follow the provided directions exactly as they’re given, and watch out to make sure answer all parts of a multi-part question.

A successful essay will also make full use of the documents you’ve been provided. You should do your best to address all the documents in your essay, though it’s acceptable to use all but one. Mentioning these documents isn’t enough—you’ll need to show that you really understand them, from the meaning of the text to the historical context of the authors’ identities and points of view.

It’s very important to remember that a high-scoring DBQ essay is an essay, not just a list of comments on your sources. It should have the same components as any other short essay, including a strong thesis statement and ample supporting evidence for this thesis. Most of all, it has to be coherent and make sense as an argument for your point.

For more specific details of how the DBQ is evaluated and scored, the rubric that’s used for all the AP history exams is available on the College Board website.

Preparing for the DBQ

When you’re studying for your DBQ, it’s important for you to keep in mind that the question and accompanying documents may come from any part of the AP US History curriculum. There’s no way of knowing what material your DBQ will involve, so it’s essential that you have a strong overall strategy for reviewing the full scope of what you’ve learned.

As we’ve mentioned, the purpose of the DBQ is to teach you how to approach historical data and documents in a way that’s similar to how a real historian would do it. You’ll be given specific details, but it’s up to you to place those details in their proper historical context and develop a well-supported interpretation of the materials you’re given.

It’s essential, then, that you build up your ability to interpret sources, making use of the concepts and skills you’ve learned through the AP US History curriculum. You can’t simply rely on memorizing your textbook’s explanations of historical events; you also have to develop this skill and make your understanding of the material your own.

On a more specific, practical level, when preparing for your AP US History exam, and specifically for the DBQ, completing practice test questions and full practice tests is always helpful. At the moment, practice test options are limited due to the recent exam updates, so if you do get to take a practice test, it’s especially important for you to take it seriously.

Whatever practice you’re able to accomplish, make sure you do it with correct timing and a testing environment that mimic the real exam. Time management in the silence and stress of the exam room is a difficult thing, and timed practice questions will help you get a better feel for how quickly you need to work to complete your essay on time.

Your test day plan of attack for the DBQ

Finally, it’s time for the moment of truth: test day. In the span of three hours and fifteen minutes, you’ll answer multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions that might address any topic in the broad-ranging AP US History curriculum. Sandwiched in the middle of this test will be, of course, the DBQ.

Studying the material that will appear on the test is important, but with a timed, standardized test, it’s also important to be prepared for the particular testing environment. Here are some tips for approaching the real AP US History exam in the moment, when stress levels are high and time is of the essence.

  • Read and re-read the question carefully. Make sure you understand exactly what you’re being asked to do—a misunderstanding can derail your entire essay.
  • Read the test’s list of requirements for your answer. You don’t need to guess at what to include in your response—the test will tell you exactly what the readers are looking for.
  • Read the documents carefully, keeping the question and requirements in mind. Take note of the author, the date, the location, and any other facts that frame the document, and think about how these may have affected its creation.
  • Plan wisely—it makes a difference. Taking a moment to plan ensures that your essay will contain all its required parts and makes the writing process go much more smoothly.
  • Make sure your planned answer is cohesive and analytical. It needs to be a coherent essay with depth and a strong thesis, not just a list of the sources.
  • Write quickly and stay focused. Follow the plan you’ve made, watch for mistakes that obscure your meaning, and make sure your handwriting is legible.
  • Save a few moments to review your essay briefly for errors. You can’t make any major changes at this point, of course, and minor spelling or grammar errors won’t count against you, but you’ll want to make sure that your essay makes sense.

For more information

Here at the CollegeVine blog , we’re no strangers to the demands of AP exams and courses. Take a look at our other blog posts about the AP program for more information about AP course offerings and how to prepare for your AP exams.

  • Ultimate Guide to the AP Chemistry Exam
  • Ultimate Guide to the AP Biology Exam
  • Ultimate Guide to the AP Calculus AB Exam
  • Ultimate Guide to the AP World History Exam
  • Ultimate Guide to the AP Statistics Exam

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apush new deal dbq essay

All Subjects

7.10 The New Deal

8 min read • june 18, 2024

Robby May

Caleb Lagerwey

Introduction

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd president of the United States, sought to fight the worst parts of the Great Depression through his legislative agenda, nicknamed the  New Deal . This changed the role of the federal government in new ways (mostly by expanding it) and changed the alignment of political parties (this is one of two major time periods when the Democrats and Republicans began to morph into the parties we recognize today).

FDR, the Three R’s, & Alphabet Soup

FDR’s first priority was supporting the failing bank systems. He quickly declared a  Banking Holiday backed by the  Emergency Banking Relief Act , where the banks would close and then the federal government would allow those it had inspected and found to be safe to reopen. This helped to restore public confidence in the banks and reversed the runs on the bank once they reopened.

Second, in order to increase tax revenue and increase public morale, the country passed the  21st Amendment , which repealed the 18th Amendment and its prohibition against alcohol. 

apush new deal dbq essay

Third, in order to personally communicate with citizens and to help restore their faith in banking (and government), FDR began a series of  Fireside Chats  (🔥+📻=👍🏦), or presidential radio addresses. 

Finally, FDR and Congress started a legislative spree where they passed law after law creating new programs and agencies in effect to address the Great Depression, altogether known as the  New Deal . There are two ways to characterize the New Deal: the first way is the “3 Rs” of  Relief (stop people from starving right now),  Recovery (help the economy get back on track and people employed again), and  Reform (change the economic system to ensure this never happens again). 

The second is to talk about the  First New Deal (1933-1935) and the  Second New Deal (1935+). Let’s look at some notable examples of the 3Rs in action:

Key New Deal “Alphabet Soup” Programs

Agricultural Adjustment AdministrationPaid farmers to plow under (not plant) more acreage to increase crop prices. This could hurt black and white sharecroppers by kicking them off land. (declared unconstitutional in 1935 by SCOTUS)
Civilian Conservation CorpsPaid younger men to develop and work on national parks and forests. Gave them jobs and money to send home.
Federal Deposit Insurance CorporationInsured bank deposits to prevent runs on the bank and thus bank bankruptcies where people would lose all their deposited savings.
 Federal Emergency Relief AdministrationProvided direct monetary assistance to poor people. It was referred to as being “on the dole.”
Federal Housing AdministrationInsured bank loans for building new houses or repairing existing ones (super racist and discriminatory against African Americans)
National Recovery AdministrationRegulated business profits, prices, wages, and hours. Gave workers the right to organize & bargain collectively. (declared unconstitutional in 1935 by SCOTUS)
Public Works AdministrationGave money to state and local governments to build dams, roads, bridges, and other public infrastructure projects with new jobs. 
Securities & Exchange CommissionRegulates the stock market and business trading practices to avoid the speculative buying that led to the big crash in 1929
Social Security ActSet up Social Security, a public pension system for the elderly or people with disabilities who were unable to work.
Tennessee Valley AuthorityHired people to build dams, power plants, and flood/erosion control in the Tennessee Valley, a notoriously poor area
Works Progress AdministrationHired people to build infrastructure (dams, airports, bridges, roads, post offices, etc.) and to create culture. Funded artists, playwrights, actors, writers, and photographers.

(Remember, you don’t have to memorize all of these; just be able to recognize them if they came on in a document on the exam and to be able to use a few of them to describe how the US changed because of the New Deal) 

A few other important programs worth knowing that don’t have fun, alphabet soup acronyms are the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act and the Glass-Steagall Act . 

The  Glass-Steagall Act  regulated banks and put dividers between the savings and investment parts of banks. 

Reform primarily occured as part of the Second New Deal. The First New Deal focused primarily on establishing the "alphabet agencies" that covered all three R's, whereas the Second New Deal was reform focused. Two major reforms also came about as a part of the  Second New Deal .

National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act

The Act created the National Labor Relations Board to preside over labor-management relations and enable unions to engage in collective bargaining with federal support. 

  • It outlawed a variety of union busting tactics.
  • It said that whenever a majority of the company’s workers voted for a union to represent them, management would be compelled to negotiate with the union on all matters of wages, hours, and working conditions. Now, labor unions could recruit large numbers of workers. The act led to a revitalization of the labor union movement. 

Social Security Act

The legislation had three major points:

  • It provided for old-age pensions financed equally by tax on employers and worker, without government contributions. It gave states federal matching funds to provide modest pensions for destitute elderly. The Social Security trust fund would then be used to make monthly payments to retired persons over the age of 65
  • It set up a system of unemployment compensation on a federal-state basis, with employers paying a payroll tax and with each state setting benefit levels and administering the program locally.
  • It provided direct federal grants to the state on a matching basis for welfare payments to the blind, handicapped, needy elderly and dependent.

Critics of the New Deal

Not everyone agreed with FDR’s proposals, and he received opposition and criticism from people on his left (more progressive and liberal) and on his right (more conservative and traditional).

For some liberals, the New Deal didn’t go far enough or addressed the problems of the rich businessmen more than poor people, minorities, or women. They had a point: the New Deal was only possible with the support of conservative Southern Democrats who were deeply racist and oversaw the Jim Crow-fixation of the New Deal. People like  Huey Long and his  Share Our Wealth Society called for a 100% tax rate for all incomes over a million dollars and the redistribution of those funds to poor people. Huey Long was a left wing populist who's primary focus was ending the Depression for the people, as opposed to businesses. He felt that the New Deal primarily bailed out failing businesses and was insufficiently radical.

Father Charles Coughlin

In a nationwide radio show,  Father Coughlin appealed to the discontent. He called the New Deal the Pagan Deal, appealing to Christian conservative Americans who were already against the New Deal. When his show became increasingly Fascist and anti-Semitic, his superiors in the Catholic Church ordered him to stop his broadcasts. Coughlin is primarily known for his racist and anti-Semitic viewpoints, although he had over 30 million listeners during the 1930s, amounting to roughly a quarter of the country at the time. As World War II began to rear its head, Coughlin supported policies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

He called the Great Depression a "cash famine" and called for the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, also calling for free silver.

Dr. Francis Townsend

Dr. Francis Townsend was a physician who came forward with a plan to assist the elderly, who were suffering greatly during the depression. The  Townsend Plan proposed giving everyone over the age of 60 a monthly pension of $200 with a provison that it must be spent in 30 days. Townsend was less of a critic of the New Deal and more of a believer that it needed to go broader with direct payments towards the public as opposed to financing federal projects.

Court Packing Plan

Conservatives were shocked at the new levels of government intrusion and spending and the New Deal’s pro-union stances. They too had a point: the New Deal was a radical increase in government spending and oversight. The  Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) invalidated several New Deal programs, such as the AAA.

FDR planned to add more justices to the Supreme Court to get his agenda through, but received outraged opposition, even from within his own party. Ultimately the Supreme Court upheld most of the New Deal and FDR backed down from the  court-packing plan . 

After that failure and when the economy started to slow in 1937, FDR’s legislative agenda began to slow.

The Effects of the New Deal

The effects of the New Deal were controversial and remain so to this day. 

That being said, most historians—and the College Board—state that while the New Deal did not entirely end the Great Depression (that would be WWII), it did leave a lasting impact on the United States.

First, its programs fundamentally and (so-far) permanently changed the relationship between citizens and their government. The  US federal government had grown under the New Deal, and many programs (e.g., Social Security, FDIC, etc.) are still very much a part of the US today. 

Second, FDR’s policies created the so-called  New Deal Coalition , a group of people who usually vote for Democrats and which, with some changes, remains the core of the Democratic Party to this day. This group includes African Americans, Jewish people, working-class families, and those on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

While the New Deal did little to hurt the economy of the United States on paper, it did not do significant good either. In fact, in 1937 when Roosevelt scaled back the programs he had created, the economy suffered another, more mild, recession. This was called the  Roosevelt Recession . This has also been blamed on contractionary monetary policy by the Federal Reserve (interested? Take AP Macro!).

The  Great Depression continued through the entirety of the 1930s, only being fully dissolved during World War II, when large amounts of government spending for the war effort stimulated the economy.

apush new deal dbq essay

In this graph, we see the two recessions - the  Great Depression and  Roosevelt Recession , followed by significant GDP growth into World War II.

🎥 Watch: AP US History -   the Great Depression and the New Deal

Key Terms to Review ( 30 )

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History Resources

apush new deal dbq essay

The Great Depression and The New Deal

By wendy thowdis, essential questions.

  • What should be the role of government in solving a national crisis?
  • How effective were the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to the problems of the Great Depression?

Objectives 

  • Write a Document Based Essay that demonstrates proper writing skills.
  • Critically analyze primary source documents to explore the role of government during a national crisis.
  • Develop a thorough understanding of how FDR politically and economically approached the vast problems of the Great Depression.
  • Develop an understanding of the New Deal and be able to discuss both positive aspects and criticisms of this plan.
  • Writing a Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach  (PDF)
  • Historical Context, Directions and Task  (PDF)
  • Document Packet  (PDF)
  • Creating a Document Based Essay  (PDF)

Teach the students how you expect them to write the DBQ essay. Use the attached list of guidelines. (Writing a Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach) and hand out the Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach

Teach through the Historical Context, Directions and Task (attached) for the DBQ and model how students should get started with this task. Break down each of the ten steps so they see what is expected.

Have them write their thesis paragraph in class in groups of three and swap papers to look for the three guiding principles:

  • Did you take a position?
  • Did you offer an interpretation of the question?
  • Did you offer organizing or controlling ideas which will form the paragraphs of the body?
  • Have them complete the rest of the work on the essay at home

Additional Activity

Have the students create Document Based Essay. Use the attached list of directions (Creating a Document Based Essay) as a guideline to develop their own DBQ.

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COMMENTS

  1. PDF 2003 AP United States History Free-Response Questions

    AP® United States History 2003 Free-Response Questions. The materials included in these files are intended for use by AP teachers for course and exam preparation; permission for any other use must be sought from the Advanced Placement Program®. Teachers may reproduce them, in whole or in part, in limited quantities for noncommercial, face-to ...

  2. PDF 2019 APUSH DBQ Sample Essays by Tom Richey

    NOTE: This is NOT an essay that I would encourage students to write, but an essay in this format still warrants mention because 1) the average score on the 2019 APUSH DBQ was a 2.5, which this essay exceeds, and 2) it may be about as much as some students with weak writing skills will be able to do.

  3. AP United States History Exam Questions

    Score Distributions. Introduction and Preface. Short Answer Question 1. Short Answer Question 2. Short Answer Question 3. Document-Based Question 1. Long Essay Question 2. Long Essay Question 3. Download free-response questions from past AP United States History exams, along with scoring guidelines, sample responses, and scoring distributions.

  4. PDF 2003 AP United States History Sample Student Responses Question 1

    AP®United States History 2003 Sample Student Responses. These materials were produced by Educational Testing Service®(ETS ), which develops and administers the examinations of the Advanced Placement Program for the College Board. The College Board and Educational Testing Service (ETS) are dedicated to the principle of equal opportunity, and ...

  5. PDF 2003 APUSH DBQ-FDR and New Deal

    2003 APUSH DBQ-FDR and New Deal Having gone through severe unemployment, food shortages, and· a seemingly remiss President Hoover, the American ... essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period . • 1. Analyze the responses of Franklin D. Rooi;evelt' s administration to the ...

  6. PDF AP United States History

    Evaluate the extent to which the Progressive movement fostered political change in the United States from 1890 to 1920. Maximum Possible Points: 7. Points Rubric Notes A: Thesis/Claim (0- 1) Responds to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis/claim that establishes a line of reasoning. (1 point)

  7. PDF Document 1

    Synthesize the elements above Into a persuasive essay that extends your argument, connects it to a different historical context, or accounts for contradictory evidence on the topic. Source: William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., ' 'The Hand Of Improvidence," The Nation, November 14, 1934. The New Deal, being both a philosophy and a mode Of action, began ...

  8. New Deal for Everyone DBQ Sample

    New Deal for Everyone DBQ Sample. 11/14/2019. Please read the day's post below. Here you will find a sample response to the practice DBQ. The argument is a little underdeveloped, as we'd prefer to not see the separate body paragraphs for Native Americans, but this would be awfully close to a 7/7 for 20 minutes work.

  9. Apush 7.02 (Updated 2018 )

    apush assignment essay evaluate the extent to which franklin new deal represented radical shift in the relationship between the federal government and citizens. ... Ap us history dbq. AP U.S. History 98% (48) 9. E. Period 7 1898 - 1945 Amsco Note Taking Guide (Ch. 24) ...

  10. PDF 2003 Ap@ United States History Free-response Questions

    UNITED STATES HISTORY. 1Part A (Suggested writing time--45 minutes) Percent of Section I1 score-45Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretati. n of Documents A-J your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite ...

  11. PDF AP United States History

    A. Thesis/Claim (0-1 points): 1. The response earned 1 point for thesis because it provides a historically defensible claim that establishes a line of reasoning in the first paragraph: "Commercial development has been historically one of the largest growth factors for the United States.

  12. AP U.S. History Sample Essays

    Use these sample AP U.S. History essays to get ideas for your own AP essays. These essays are examples of good AP-level writing. 1. The '50s and '60s: Decades of Prosperity and Protest (DBQ) The 1950s were characterized as a prosperous and conformist decade for many reasons. The first and most widespread of these reasons was the development ...

  13. PDF AP U.S. History Sample Questions

    These sample exam questions were originally included in the AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework, published in fall 2012. The AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description, which is out now, includes that curriculum framework, along with a new, unique set of exam questions. Because we want teachers to have access to all available questions that ...

  14. Roosevelt and the Revolutionary New Deal

    Roosevelt was a revolutionary for his time. He challenged the accepted role of government in society by intervening to improve the quality of life for countless Americans. Though his actions were controversial, it is clear that they had a positive effect on American society. Ultimately, though, it would take World War II to lift the American ...

  15. PDF Repurposed Ap Us History Dbq

    NOTE: This is an old format DBQ from 2003 reformatted in an effort to conform to the new DBQ format. Document letters have been replaced with numbers and 3 documents (the former Documents E, H, and J) have been removed so that there are only seven documents. The prompt may have been altered in order to better conform to the new format.

  16. Acing the Document Based Question on the AP US History Exam

    The AP US History DBQ is always designed to test a certain set of skills that it considers essential to historical study. The readers will judge your essay upon how well it demonstrates solid argumentation, analysis of evidence, contextualization, and synthesis. In addition to these skills, each year's DBQ requires test-takers to demonstrate ...

  17. PDF 2003 AP United States History Scoring Guidelines

    AP® United States History 2003 Scoring Guidelines. The materials included in these files are intended for use by AP teachers for course and exam preparation; permission for any other use must be sought from the Advanced Placement Program®. Teachers may reproduce them, in whole or in part, in limited quantities for noncommercial, face-to-face ...

  18. AP United States History Exam

    Recommended time: 40 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score. Students explain and analyze significant issues in U.S. history. Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence. The question choices focus on the same skills and the same reasoning process (e.g., comparison, causation, or continuity and change), but students choose ...

  19. The New Deal

    Introduction. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd president of the United States, sought to fight the worst parts of the Great Depression through his legislative agenda, nicknamed the New Deal.This changed the role of the federal government in new ways (mostly by expanding it) and changed the alignment of political parties (this is one of two major time periods when the Democrats and ...

  20. The Great Depression and The New Deal

    Teach the students how you expect them to write the DBQ essay. Use the attached list of guidelines. (Writing a Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach) and hand out the Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach. Teach through the Historical Context, Directions and Task (attached) for the DBQ and model how students should get started with this task.

  21. PDF AP United States History

    AP Central is the official online home for the AP Program: apcentral.collegeboard.org. https://collegeboard.org ... of the exam, essays may contain errors that do not detract from their overall quality, as long as the historical content used to advance the ... especially in new western states founded by White

  22. APEuro DBQ (docx)

    What Is the AP Euro DBQ? Why Is It Important? The DBQ, or "document-based question," is an essay question type on three AP History exams (AP US History, AP European History, and AP World History). For the DBQ essay, you'll need to analyze a historical issue or trend with the aid of the provided sources (the documents) as evidence. For AP European History, you'll generally be given about seven ...