APUSH Score: How Each Section Is Weighted

The four APUSH exam sections and the share of the composite score each contributes.

Stacked bar showing APUSH exam section weights: Multiple Choice 40 percent, Short Answer 20 percent, DBQ 25 percent, Long Essay 15 percent
APUSH composite weighting: MCQ 40%, SAQ 20%, DBQ 25%, LEQ 15%.

How the APUSH exam is weighted

The AP United States History exam has four scored parts. Each contributes a fixed share of your total exam score:

  • Multiple Choice (Section I, Part A) - 40%. Up to 55 questions.
  • Short-Answer Questions (Section I, Part B) - 20%. 3 questions, worth 3 points each (9 points total).
  • Document-Based Question (Section II, Part A) - 25%. 1 question, worth 7 points.
  • Long Essay Question (Section II, Part B) - 15%. 1 question, worth 6 points.

This estimator scales each section's raw score to its weight, sums them into a composite out of 100, and maps the composite to an estimated 1-5 AP score range.

Important caveat

College Board does not publish official raw-to-scaled conversion tables, and the raw-score cutoffs for each AP score are set annually and can vary. APUSH shares its section structure and weighting with AP World History: Modern and AP European History. Treat every result as an estimate and a range, not a prediction of your official score. This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the College Board.

Source

College Board — AP United States History exam structure

https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-united-states-history/assessment

Section weighting is public; raw-score cutoffs are not published and vary annually.

Use the Calculator

This diagram is part of the AP United States History (APUSH) Score Estimator.

Open AP United States History (APUSH) Score Estimator →