Go into phase two. Washington journal continues. Host once again, we are back. Are help him high school helping Highschool Students around the country prepare for the advanced u. S. History placement exam. Matthewere with ellington and jason stacy. Good morning, gentlemen. Guest good morning. Guest good morning. Host this is the first year we have done the u. S. History cram for the exam for advanced placement. We want everybody to know what is changing this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Guest there is quite a bit that is changing this year. Probably the biggest change is that it is a shorter test. It is usually about 45minutes long. It is going to be an online test for students. In addition, it is just one documentbased essay question with five documents. Finally, it is an exam that students can take athome from their computers. Era, of Distance Learning, colleges have modified the test while keeping the same skills students need to be successful. Finally, this test is an opennote test. Students may refer to the notes as they take the exam. Guest and i think it is really exciting the changes they have made. They have kept the documentbased questions. Ways is the lot of crown jewel of the test. It allows them to interpret documents and bring in all the good information you have learned this year. It is important also to remember that this year is a modified time period that will be covered, concentrating on period in 1770 four, and ending in period seven, which ends in 1945. Host we will open up our phone lines for Highschool Students only. We went Highschool Students to call in with questions about u. S. History for our distinguished teachers. If you have questions or if you want to attempt one of our practice questions on air this morning, we want to hear from you as well. Highschool students only. We will open up regional phone lines. That means if you are a highschool student in the eastern or central time zones, we want to hear from you at 2027488000. If you are a highschool student in the mountain and pacific time zones and you have a question about the test, about u. S. History, or a question about how you should answer this question, we want to hear from you at 2027488001. Once again, easterncentral time zone, 2027488000. Zones,n and pacific time 2027488001. Gentlemen, i was looking at some questions. The first one that immaturely popped to mind is that since of this is an essay test, how much are you expected to write . Guest that is a great question, jesse. The amount you are expected to write is enough to answer the question. There is no number of words required. You should expect to write an essay that is multiparagraph and has a clear argument and the argument is probably going to be driven through a number of paragraphs. You should plan on having an introduction, and if you have time for it, a conclusion. Guest thats right. All essays are graded on a rubric. Students need to make sure they are familiar with the rubric and they are writing in a way that they can accomplish the various tasks. But nobody is counting words or pages, nobody is counting characters. Test will bed this taken by students at home. Can you take this at any time at home, or is there only at certain time periods let the test will be open to students at home . Be taking it at the same time or at different times. Guest goahead, matt. Guest this test will be taken by everyone across the world at the same exact time. It is going to be given on friday, may 15 at 2 00 p. M. Eastern, 11 00 a. M. Pacific time, and whatever local time people are. For folks in the u. S. , it will not be bad. For folks overseas, they could be testing at odd hours. The College Board is doing this to ensure the test can be as secure as possible. Guest as i understand it, there is a number of ways students can record their answer, write it in a work file word file or text file and turn it in as a file that they upload. They can take a picture of their responses and upload those with a phone, or they can even, i believe, right into a text box College Board will provide write it into a text box that College Board will provide. Host how long will students have to write this essay and get it submitted . Guest students will click on their exam ticket, it will open up their exam. College board strongly recommends students log in 30 minutes prior to the exam, because there will be some security screens and questions they have to verify their identity. When the exam begins, students will see the full question. They will say that direction. They will see the five primary source documents that go with the question, and then there will also be the submission window that students can use. Either cutandpaste, as jason was mentioning. Or they can attach their document to that. Well, we have some students waiting on the line to talk to you or perhaps to ask some questions. We start with julia from new jersey. Good morning. Guest hi, julia. Host julia, are you there . We seem to have lost julia. Lets move to sarah calling from bay city, michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. Guest hi, sarah. Caller hi. Host do you want to try one of our sample questions and see how you would write your essay . Caller i have a question. Exam this year, and what is the format for it . Guest it is 45 minutes you will have to write. And it is just one dbq that you will have to answer, and that bbq will have five documents. Guest thats right. This exam is basically a shorter , more condensed version of the traditional ap exam. The same scale as everything you would have learned in your class , but you will only have one dbq to show what you know on the exam. Host a question for both of you gentlemen. School seniors taking the ap test this year, or can juniors take it as well . Who is taking the test . Guest actually. Guest goahead. [laughter] host lets start with you, jason. Guest teachers, we left a talk. [laughter] anyone who has signed up for a test in high school. It is usually High School Seniors who take the test. Juniors can take it and i assume this will can also have sophomores who have signed up. I dont believe there is a designated age as long as students are in high school. Usually, it is juniors would take the exam. Guest that is correct. My classes are all junior classes. Most high schools i know test juniors. Host now, here is a question for you. Are either one of you suggesting that any of your students wait until next year to take it, or are you saying, go ahead and do this. Lets start with you, matthew. Guest absolutely not. I dont recommend waiting, because there is a lot of content students need to remember and that is a long time to go, because of those students will not be enrolled in ap u. S. History next year, so i definitely recommend students take it this year. As i said, it is the same skills as on the regular exam, it is just shorter and in an online format. Guest thats right, matt. I agree. If you prepare for it, if you spend all this time in your classes, reading your textbooks, practicing your essays, learning the information over the course of the academic year, the real reward is to take the test. College board made a great test in choosing the dbq as the feature they will keep in this unusual year, because it allows you to show off all the skills. Your knowledge, your ability to make arguments, ability to documents. That dbqs will allow you to show off all the work you have done. Host lets talk to another student, thelma, calling from cambridge, massachusetts. Guest good morning, thelma. Host thelma, good morning. Caller good morning. Question, what is meant by the revolution of reconstruction, and what are the points to get the extra complexity point on the essay, if we are asked about radical reconstruction or the revolution of reconstruction. Host lets start with jason. Guest i will start with the first part of the question and i will go to matt for the complexity point, because he has a lot of good stuff to say about it. The revolution of reconstruction is in reference primarily to the amendments that come after the civil war, the 13th, 14th, and 15 amendments. The 13th amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. 14th amendment, establishing civil rights rejected by the federal government against state those inpecifically the former confederacy that are oppressing africanamerican populations in the south. And the 15th amendment that grants Voting Rights to africanamericans ideally throughout the United States. However, it is important to keep in mind that there is a lot going on on the ground during reconstruction after the civil war, between 18651877. A lot of of what is going on especially in the south during to theriod is contrary 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. Keep in important to mind that the socalled revolution of reconstruction has a very mixed legacy. By the end of that time frame, africanamericans, former slaves south, former enslaved africanamericans in the south are finding it very difficult to acquire their own land. Many of them are in sharecropping contracts that reduce them to a situation where they are permanently in debt to land holders, many of whom are former slaveholders themselves. And also, especially by the end of reconstruction and even into the 1880s, Voting Rights are being curtailed in the south for africanamericans through terrorism, organizations like the ku klux klan, and also local legislation, grandfather clauses and literacy tests that prevent africanamericans from fulfilling those rights that they helped acquire in fighting the civil war on the side of the union, and that the American Congress salt to instill and sought to instill in place in the constitution in those amendments. Guest jason is right. If you remember even a fraction of what he said, you will earn the complexity point. It is College Boards attempt to award a more sophisticated essay. If you look at the rubric, the complexity point is given for qualifying or modifying an argument. Now, there are some tips we can give you to maximize your chances at earning the complexity point. The textbook jason and i wrote called fabric of the nation, we outlined a threestep strategy called gem. The acronym stands for generate nunance. You want to use more sophisticated language click jason used in talking about not just the successes, but also talking about the limitations of reconstruction. How it applied differently to different groups. What did and did not work. The second part of the strategy is to explain both sides of the reasoning skill. College board frames their essay questions around one of three causation,kills comparison, or continuity and change over time. All three of those reasoning skills actually have two sides to them. Causation is cause and effect. Comparison is similarity and difference. Continuity and change obviously, continuity and change. One of the tipster on the complexity point is to make sure that if the prompt only calls for one side, for example, if it said, evaluate the extent of change in terms of reconstruction, you would also want to talk about some of the continuities. Some of the things that dont change. The third part of the strategy, is to make connections across time. You could connect the construction and of the 15th amendment to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, in your completing paragraph, that is often times a great place to do that. Readers are looking for evidence that you have done this. If you take a multipron ged approach to earn the complexity point, you will greatly increase your chance of getting that point on the rubric. Host what is the grading scale test . S when you get your results, what can you tell from the score that is on the test. Guest ok. The grading scale is similar but a little bit different than it has been in years past. Traditionally, the rubric has been a sevenpoint rubric for the documentbased as a question. This year, because that is the only part of the exam, College Board has extended that to 10rubric points. All the skills and tasks, however, are still the same. College board will take your this timeand they are just taking the essay score and they will translate that into an overall a peace corps. So what overall into an ap score. Generally, colleges will accept a score of three and above. Others are more strict and accept scores of two and above. Usually on an ap exam, a slim majority will earn a three and above in any given year to make them eligible for college credit. Host lets go back to another , lets who is waiting talk to miles calling from fayetteville, North Carolina. Good morning. Caller good morning. Miles. Good morning, host do you want to try one of the questions we have prepared here . Caller i have a question that is more about the testing. Host go ahead, then. Wondering,i was just of all the people taking the test at the same time, there shouldnt be a chance that the server or website should go down, is there . [laughter] guest i hope not. Guest there is no chance, miles. Caller ok. Guest but make sure if you have siblings or family members that are heavy streamers or gamers and your internet is a little more limited, you will want to ask them to pause what they are doing so you have the bandwidth to be able to upload when you are done right in your essay. Guest miles, are you still on the line . Host i think he has already dropped off. One of theto look at documents that may show up in some form, maybe not on this test, may be short up before. I want you maybe showed up before. Tell us what the student is supposed to do once they see this. Here is something a student could see as an example for one of these tests. This is in North Carolina contract from 1882 that says, to everyone applying to rent land, the following conditions must be agreed to. Of the con to be made by me when and where i choose to sell, and after deducting all that they only and all the sums that i may be responsible for on their accounts, to pay them their half of the net proceeds, now come matthew, tell us what you should do after you read document. Guest this is a great document, very much to the kind of document students may see on the ap u. S. History exam. Students several tasks should complete when they see a document like this. The first half is to ask themselves, what is this document about . Sometimes the title will tell you. In this case, it is a sharecroppers contract. So ask themselves, what do they remember about sharecropping, where does that fit in the historical timeline, and most importantly, how does it relate exam . There is one point on the rubric for using two of the five documents in a simple, district descriptive manner. Being able to summarize that. Most students can read and summarize. That is the first task students want to do. But ideally, students want to connect that document into an argument. Depending on what the question is students want to use the document to move their essay forward, to support whatever point or points they are making. Toally, students also want complete the task of sourcing. There are up to two points possible on the ap exam for the dbq for sourcing a document. Sourcing is College Boards way of asking students to think like historian. Ce can they examine and analyze the document in one of four ways, by anding at discussing the context around the document, by identifying the intended audience who was a document for, and how does it help us understand the document by looking at the authors purpose. What is the goal. What is the author trying to accomplish in this document . Or, by looking at the point of view being expressed in the document. Guest thats right. There are a few strategies to approaching these documents, that i think are important. I imagine you have talked about this in class with your teacher. Jessie, one more time, could you read the first line after the document . Ce in the host after the word source . 1882. Carolina contract, guest sometimes wouldnt have a document in front of us written in the language that is over 100 years old and we start reading it, it gets very intimidating. The language it is written is not the way we normally speak today. Normally it is talking about something that happened a long time ago, so it is often important not to go looking for the answers in the document at first. It is often important to look at kesse just line that k read. You have the work contract and you have the word 1882. This provides you some clues as to what the document is likely going to be about. You probably remember a few key dates from the class. Not all the dates you heard this entire year, and that is ok, that some of the key dates, for example, the years of the civil war. The question about the revolution of her construction between 18551877, if you have a65 in mind, you know this is postcivil war document. With that in mind, you can begin to recall some of the important pieces of information and the broad context of the time period in the generation after the civil war. If you look at the word contract, it may trigger in your mind, the sharecropping contracts that you recall from class and that i talked about briefly at the beginning of where former enslaved africanamericans who were newly freed found it very difficult to acquire land, primarily because, except for a very short period after the civil war, many of the governments in the former confederacy are controlled by those who want to prevent formerly enslaved africanamericans from acquiring property and civil rights. Former africanamerican slaves found themselves in these sharecropping contracts where they were forced to rent land and pay for the rent with a portion of their crops, which send them into a cycle of debt and made it impossible for them to ever acquire land and even use the places where they were currently working the land. So in the first line, you can begin to have a sense of what the document might be talking about. Then when you begin to read the document, you can begin to think, who is actually talking in this document . Could it be a formerly enslaved African American . A white landholder . And there is a portion in there where the writer or speaker is talking about what is owed to me. It should clue you in that this is probably a white landholder creating a contract for formerly enslaved africanamericans. And that contract will probably not be in those peoples benefit. This begins to bring in all the information to help you get those extra points on the dbq the point of view of the speaker, the context in which it is being written, all that good historical apprenticeship that you have been trained over the last year, to begin to make this document work for a argument. Host lets go back to the phone lines and talk to another student. This is julia calling from montclair, new jersey. Good morning. Caller hi. I know theres a lot of information and time periods took around the test. Any online resources, and what specifically should be focused on when studying. Host we will let you take that one, matthew. Guest sure. Julia. Great question, as jason mentioned, College Board narrowed the focus of the test a little bit this year. It will be somewhere between 1754, the beginning of the french and indian war, and 1945, the end of world war ii. There are a lot of resources students, bothap in the College Board, and other resources, both commercial and that features have put out there as well. But let me give a plug to ap teachers around the country. Rather than simply going out and buying a review book or finding additional resources, i think that many ap students already have everything they need from what they have done in the course of during the year. Guest thats right. Guest so i would encourage you to continue using some of those lecture notes, the homework, or the outlines that youve done in your class and then strategically supplement them with resources that you find online that are helpful. One resource in particular i want to call out is the concept outline from the College Board. If your teacher hasnt shared this with you, you can find this at the College Boards website, simply google concept outline ap u. S. History. It will come up. That is about 15 pages of content that the College Board says, here are the essential concepts. These are the enduring understandings, the big richer ideas sprinkled with a few specific big picture ideas sprinkled with a few specific terms and events we believe you need to know. So a good strategy is to go through the concept outline and understand the concepts. Make sure that you can explain those concepts, make sure you can provide a couple of examples those. H of and really make sure there are no terms or any Vocabulary Words in those 15 pages that are unfamiliar to you, because if between, you have time now and the exam to familiarize that. Lf with that is, in my opinion, the ultimate study guide for ap u. S. History exam. Guest and the great thing about the concept outline is that it also includes each section broken down by subsections, very clear tasks that and as a question could ask you to do. To analyze things, to describe things, soexplain that it is not only just information for you to try to memorize, which is never a great way to study for this test because you have to do so much analysis and argumentation, but to have a series of tasks that asks you to think about. One of those sub questions asks you to describe or explain or evaluate, you can take out a sheet of paper and test yourself on how much you remember from that particular section. That,fter you have done you can go back to the concept outline and see some of the information they have tthere to support that question. Host lets talk about time management. I teach a graduatelevel writing class, and one of the things i always insist before i get an essay from anybody is an outline. Do you suggest the students taking the ap test spend time writing an outline of their essay, or do you suggest they get right into it . How long should they study the photo or the contract or the paragraph, before getting into the writing portion . Matthew, we will start with you. Guest absolutely. Time is of the essence on this years ap exam. Thannts have less time they have ever had before, 45 minutes to read, think, outline, and, most importantly, write this essay. And a fiveminute submission window. College board says you have 50 minutes total. Not a second more. As much as i would love for students to fully outline, there is not time for that. Maybe a brief, quick outline. Jot down your main points, log in your documents and outside information, but then you have to go, because, as jason said, you want a 34, five paragraph essay, and you need time to submit the essay to College Board all within 50 minutes. So time is of the essence. Students need to move quickly. It is only the written essay that will be graded, not the outline. Guest i used to instruct my students to read the dbq question first and maybe take a minute or two to think about how they would answer the question if it were just an essay question without documents. I am interested in matts opinion on this, if he would well. T this as i found sometimes my students would read the question, not really think about what the question is asking or how they could answer it, then they would immediately go to the documents to try to find the answer. Often times in that panic, the document would confuse them more than guide them. The answerthink that to a question will already be in your head before you go to the documents. So i would encourage you, instead of doing an extensive outline as a met suggested, very difficult to do in the amount of time you will have, just take a minute or two to think about the question itself and to think about how you would answer it without the documents. I think you will find that many of the documents will fit into an argument you already generated just by looking at the question at first. Matt, what do you think about that idea . Guest absolutely, that is the same advice i give my students. The fear is that if you just jump into the documents without any thought whatsoever, you will forget some of the outside information and you are liable to write an essay about the documents. Remember, the essay needs to be about the essay prompt. There is an old joke around ap teachers that it should stand for answer their prompt. It is more than just summarizing and writing about the documents. Jason is right. Do a bit of a click brainstorm a quick brainstorm. Think about how you might organize your documents. Develop two or three categories and use those categories. If they have not given you the categories, remember the prompts are based on the reasoning skill. If it is a causation essay, ask yourself what are two or three causes or two or three effects. Else jessesing question brings to mind is that after you have looked at the question and thought about possible answers, maybe even generated the beginning of an argument, may be jotted down a word or two to help you remember it, when you go to the documents, keep in mind when you are looking at them, they will help trigger outside information that you will want to bring in on your own. For example, if we look at the first document we talked about, the sharecropping contract from 1882, once you have thought about the source line, where you see the word contract, you see 1882, you start thinking about that time period, you look at the document, you have read it and concluded, this is a white landholder who has created a document for formulae enslaved you begin tocans, realize some of the information you already know that is not in the document itself. You may want to jot that down next to the document. You may want to write down the sharecropping, which is not in the document itself. It could qualify as an example of outside information, especially if you explain that part as part of your document. If it is not in the question or in the document, bring in reconstruction, or the 13th, 14th, or 15th amendments. All of these are outside information that you will recall by taking a look at the documents. So instead of putting together a complex outline before you begin to write, do that Quick Response to the question that you think might be appropriate. Then when you go to the documents, jot down some of the outside information that comes to mind looking at the source line and then reading the document itself. Guest if i could just piggyback and extend that even further. What jason is talking about, writing that information to the documents, on the rubric, there are two points that students can earn for outside information. That is 20 . But there is another category on the rubric as well, the sourcing category. In the sourcing category, when other ways students can get credit is by explaining the historical situation or context of a document. Students wonder, how can we do this . Sounds hard. It is actually one of the easier skills in the sourcing category. The way students can do that is exactly the way jason explained, connecting the document to a specific use of outside information in that time period that explains what is happening in the document. Information, if students are generating it or it, itng themselves of can help to increase their score on the dbq. Host another student jumping in run, calling from minnesota. Good morning. Good morning, sir. As you said, we have a time limit of 50 minutes. Recently i took a timed dbq and realized i am going over the limit. What would your advice be if i had 10 or 15 minutes left and i couldnt remember a concept or dont know what to write down . What do i do. Guest that is a great question. A lot of students, including some of my students are struggling, because this year, even though they have reduced the number of documents, they also reduced the amount of time it it is not easy to write a dbq in five minutes. My answer to you is to look at the rubric of it look at yourself and what you have accomplished. When i say look at the rubric, it tells you how the essay is going to be graded. One of the strategies you can do is ask yourself, how many points, on track for, and what can i let go of . For example, there are five documents on this years exam, but in theory, you can earn nine of the 10 points but only talking about two documents if you do them well and meet all the other criteria. So one strategy might need that you shorten the number of documents you talk about. Maybeu only discuss you only discuss three documents instead of trying to cover all five. Conversely, if you struggle with the sourcing component but you feel like you know how to integrate these documents into your essay, you can do that, you could go for all of the documents but then let go of the sourcing. So you have to look at what you have done and what you are able to accomplish, then make some strategic choices as the test is going, which is why it is so important to practice ahead of time. Arun, and to that point, about running out of time, this year in particular will be a temptation because it is open notes, to go to the internet to find something you cant remember, to go to your notes and try to find that one date that you know is in there somewhere, to go into the index of your textbook. I want to stress, just because it is open notes, dont get alled into trying to find particular fact or in name or an argument that you know might be somewhere in the sources that you have. That will eat up more time that could be better spent on using he justtegies that mentioned, sticking to what you know or remember, using the documents that you can apply to the fullest. Dont be tempted by the fact that it is open notes, because it is also a very limited amount of time. You could spend five or 10 minutes trying to research one small thing and then he will find that even if you find that then you will find that even if you find that thing you will have used time that you couldve spent finishing the paragraph, establishing the context or interpreting a few more documents. ,ost next student is tom calling from buffalo, new york. Good morning. Guest good morning, tom. Tom. hey, caller my question is, what would you say the most challenging aspect of this format of the exam is compared . O the previous format host take that one, matthew. Guest sure. I think the answer will depend a little bit on each student. For a lot of students, it will be the fact that it is timed, and also the fact that it is online. My students have been practicing handwritten timewrites throughout the year. Then all of a sudden with Distance Learning and the new exam this year, it is an online format. So again, i think it is critical that students practice. Practice their typing. Practice submitting the essay. And of course, practice the actual writing of the essay is well. Fortunately, College Board has opened up an exam demo. 2020, google ap exam demo i think it is the first thing that will come right up. It is also linked directly on the College Board website. I strongly encourage all students to practice the online writing process, because while many of us might feel that it is easy, if you havent submitted an online exam before, you dont want may 15 to be the first time you do that without the familiarity of having already worked through the College Board system. Guest i just turned around, too. You know, this year there is a certain advantage to this format, because in years previous, by the time students get to the dbq, they have already done the multiplechoice and short answer questions. They spend a lot of energy to do that then they have to do the dbq. You are coming to the dbq fresh. The good thing about this years format is that it is challenging every year. It requires you to use all the skills and you have acquired over the course of the year. Now you will be able to hit the ground running because you will be able to come to the dbq fresh. Host so we are all on the same page, we will look at an image here that could be one of those sourced documents. It is an image from harpers 1867, a black and white drawing of an elderly africanamerican man casting a ballot. What would be the possible dbq . What would be the question this document would be relating to for our students . Jason . Guest jesse, that is a great document. Again, notice how important the source line is here. Both the title, where it is published and when it was published. It is important to keep in mind that in the last three years, 2019, the dbq questions have sided with the word evaluate. So when a dbq asks you to evaluate something, it is asking you to judge it. You are usually going to be asked to judge something to the extent it is or is not. So this is just one document, so that there would be four more. The question would be something like, evaluate the extent to the political and Economic Reforms of record destruction reconstruction ultimately help to those they sought to assist, or something along those lines. Then students looking at this that it wasld note in 1867, so we are two years after the civil war, we are really at the beginning of the reconstruction period. At the very beginning of that period, there was widespread voting available to formerly enslaved africanamericans. Magazine,s harpers which, students wouldnt necessarily have to know this, but this is in northern magazine published out of boston. Here is in northern magazine showing or at least proclaiming that there is progress on the part of civil rights for African Americans. But of course, students will also keep in mind that if the question is and evaluate question, evaluate the extent to which there was progress, this will end up being a very mixed legacy. So that within 10 years of the publication of this cartoon celebrated an africanamerican man voting for the first time, in fact, many africanamericans are going to find those rights curtailed. Guest yeah. And i would simply add that the College Board is in the habit of framing their questions around the historical reasoning skills effect,tion, cause and comparison, which is similarity and difference, and continuity and change. So students can ask them selves, what does this document site about the effect of reconstruction perhaps on the lives of African Americans or the political system in the south . Or how does this document illustrate one of the kinds of changes that are taking place . Or how is this similar or different to the experiences africanamericans faced before reconstruction in the civil war reconstruction and the civil war. Megan,ext question is calling from winchester, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. Guest good morning. Guest morning, megan. Caller i have a few questions, but i can pick one if that is all you can take. My first question is, how is making connections across time periods for the complexity point different from contextualization . Guest [laughing] that is a good question. The way i tried to explain that to my students is, contextualization is connected topic. Oader process or often times i encourage students to do that at the beginning of their essay to connect it, to something prior. Although it can be done at the end of the essay to connect forward or even in the middle of the essay. The way i distinguish contextualization from making connections is contextualization means it is either within or next to the time period. Making connections, you are making a jump, maybe 20, 50, 1 hundred years. I wouldnt go much farther. So it is not directed connected to the time period. Guest so a good example of that, with what we have been talking about with reconstruction is that, contextualization might take the situation for African Americans in the United States immediately prior to the civil war, may be in the 1850s or the 1840s. And a complexity point might be at the end of the essay, to look forward to well after reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, as an attempt to redress many of the problems that came out of reconstruction in that failed revolution. Host lets go to will, who is calling from buffalo, new york. The you have a question for our distinguished teachers here . Caller yeah. This is pretty much the question you just answered, but i was wondering what the importance is era. Omparing across th guest well, the importance as we just explained, is to give the reader another opportunity to reward you for complexity. It is one of the ways that College Board has defined for readers to assess whether or not an essay is more sophisticated, if it is more historically complex. Keep, you dont need to do that because, one, you dont have to earn the complexity points. Most years, over 90 of students dont arent the complexity point. It is the hardest point on the dbq to earn. Some teachers refer to it as about unicorn point. There are other ways like reasoning and scale that you can on the complexity point. It can be part of a coherent strategy to maximize your chances of success. But again, if you are running short of time, that might be something that doesnt make it into your essay. Guest the most important thing on your dbq is to generate an argument and to prove that argument by analyzing the documents, where you can bring in outside information that you understand the ways in which they support your argument, and following through with your argument through multiple paragraphs. The complexity point is very important, but it is not essential. What is essential is that you have your argument clear, that you bring to bear evidence to prove that argument, and that evidence the a combination of the documents provided. Many of those that you can use. And outside information that you remember from class, from your reading. Much of that outside information can be triggered by the document itself. Host here is another question a student has picked and send to us on twitter. Since the test is open notes, what do you believe are the key things to have printed out and sitting in front of us for the test . I dont want to have to many things in front of me but i want to have the most important things as easy access. Guest that is a great question, because it is very easy to become overwhelmed during the test. So i would recommend that you have a set of study guides, whether they are the concept outline, that perhaps you have annotated. Whether they are lecture notes, homework outlines. It is going to look different for every student but it is important that whatever it is, it is organized and it is something that you are familiar and comfortable with. You dont just want to print something off the internet for the first time and look at it during the exam. Keep in mind that the purpose of the notes, at least what should be the purpose of the notes for students, is that it is there to refresh your memory. There is not time to do any research. If you stillme need to learn something new, to it. Head and learn during the ap exam, it is all about reminding yourself of what you already know. So those notes can be used as a quick cheat sheet to refresh your memory, like, oh, thats right. Remember this event and that person and that law so i can intelligently incorporate them into my essay and show off everything that i know. Host we have about eight minutes left. Lets see if we can get our last couple of students who have been waiting ishaqi on the line to get their question in waiting patiently on the line to get their question in. Kylie in florida. What is your question . Caller hi,. I actually just got my answer questions on twitter. But i have another question. How many of the 10 point of this year do we need to get a 5 on the exam, and what points do you recommend we focus on the most. Guest great question. The truth is we dont know for sure. College board doesnt know for sure, because they will not make that decision until after everybody has taken the exam and they have read thousands of exams and they have gone through norming, andled looked at the statistics through previous years. We can take some gases. You need a majority of the points we can take some guesses. I feel 100 confident that to get a 10 out of 10, you get a 5. I feel confident that if you get 9 out of 10, you will get a 5 as well. A a good rule of tumb might be to just go by categories. One and 2, 34, 56, it is a rough estimate but that is basically as good as we can do right now. Host lets see if we can get one more student in. Emilys calling from orlando, florida. Caller good morning, everyone. I known is that it is crunch time and everybody will be studying. The have any tips on what we should be studying or things we should be looking over . Isst i think a way to start periods,ake five time periods 37 in the concept outline, and just create on a piece of paper, list those dates. So that you have got the whole period that you will be tested on divided by those five time periods. Then use that list, with spaces in between each of those time periods, to jot down some of the key trends you recall in those time periods. For example, if you are looking at the big one at the end, 18901945, some things that will immediately come to mind for example might either progressive era, the First World War and the 1920s. Orld war, the once you begin to write down some of these larger themes, some of the facts should start to come back to you. So you will have that outline. Again, it will not be very detailed, but, as matt said, it will help you remind you of what you already know. That sheet can serve as a roadmap for the whole period you are being tested on, and you will make that roadmap as you are doing your final preparations for the test and organizing it according to those five time parents that you will be evaluated on that time periods that you will be evaluated on. Host here is a question from a student earlier. It comes in from adrian, a student at north shore senior texas. Houston, adrian wants to know, what made the kansasnebraska act the part in the civil war a key part in the civil war . Guest how much time do we have left . [laughter] host about five minutes. Guest it is important for a lot of reasons. First, it is at the end of a process, since the u. S. Mexico or from 18461848, that reopened the debate about the extension of slavery. That kansasnebraska act opened up a territory from the missouri compromise of 1820 that was closed to slavery, and made possible the extension of the less edition of slavery into the west extension of the institution of slavery into the west. It effectively started the violence in the kansas territory in 1856, where you remember john brown, of course, and the border missouri, fighting it out in the kansas territory over whether kansas will become a slave state or not. This ultimately leads to violence on the senate floor, when senator Charles Sumner is caned on the floor of the senate in may of 1856. Past that, it just accelerates toward the first secession of a state in december of 1860, South Carolina. So the kansasnebraska act is to be a second effectively the trigger for the violence but is significant because it is effectively the trigger for the. Iolence that spirals matt, would you like to add to that . Guest i would just add that the act also accelerated the demise led to the party and rise of the Republican Party which was a regional party. It then prompts South Carolina and eventually 10 other states to secede from the union. Host a couple of technical questions. Students want your advice on this. The first one comes from sydney X Catholic School in nebraska. She asks how do you cite documents. Guest another question from one of our online followers who wants to know, will the question be the same for everyone on the test . Host lets start with jason and go to matthew. Guest to the first question, there is no official way in which you have to write your documents. You have to cite your documents. I recommend my students cite at the end of a sentence in a parentheses. Matt, how do you have your students cite their documents . Guest exactly the same way. Often times. The citation is as much for the students to keep track, to make sure they have covered the documents they want to cover, because the readers will have read hundreds of these dbqs, and he or she will have those documents memorized possibly by the time they get to your essay. Host and does everyone get the same question . Guest we dont know. College board will probably not answer that. If you ask of them, they will be equivalent. My guess is on past history, most students will see the same question, but they usually run several versions of the exam every year. Guest perfect answer. Host we would like to thank Matthew Ellington and jason stacy, coauthors of fabric of a nation a brief history with skills and sources, for the ap® coarse. Thank you for being with us today and helping us prep for the ap u. S. History exam. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Guest thank you, jesse. Good luck everyone and have a good test. Guest yeah, thanks, jesse. You guys can do this. You got this, students. 50 years ago, on april 30, 1970, president Richard Nixon in an address from the white house announced that u. S. And south Vietnamese Forces announced they would attack military bases in cambodia. The president s announcement led to a new wave of protests. Security forces shot and killed unarmed student protesters. Four at Kent State University in ohio and two in Jackson State College in mississippi. Good evening, my fellow americans. In my report to the nation on vietnam i announced the decision to withdraw an additional 150,000 americans from vietnam over the next year. I said then that i was making that decision despite our