Advanced Placement European History: An Anatomy of the Essay Examination, 1956-2000

Abstract

THE COLLEGE BOARD's Advanced Placement European History examination, like the program it reflects, is akin to a living organism. It has evolved over the course of its first halfcentury of existence in virtually all respects: the types and subject matter of questions asked (and not asked); the nature of the history those questions reflect; the number of questions both offered and to be answered, as well as how they have been and not been grouped; the time allotted to answer those questions; the way questions have been worded in order to elicit thought-induced responses rather than those based on memorization of facts; and in its sensitivity to issues of class, gender, geography, ethnicity, and matters of faith.' This is perhaps the kind of evolution we all can agree on: a reflection of the mixture of change and continuity that characterizes both history itself and the evolution of the survey of European history course. This evolution also reflects how we as teachers and scholars evolve during the course of our careers, all in an effort, one hopes, to do a still better job, to get closer to ever-elusive perfection, to learn from our own history as we would hope our students have learned from the history we teach them. What follows is an examination of the exam, an anatomization of forty-five years of essay questions (540 such questions in all, with a high