Free-response practice
African American Studies free-response questions
Free-response questions (FRQs) are the part of the AP® African American Studies exam where you write your own answers. Here they're grouped the way the exam uses them. Write your answer, then score it yourself with the rubric and a model answer, or sign in for free AI scoring.
20 questions · 4 types
Short answer: text source
You read one written source (sometimes two closely related ones) and answer three or four short parts: what the source says, its historical context, and connections to related course content.
On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 1 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 4 parts (A–D). Plan on about 14 minutes for one.
Unit 1
Leo Africanus describes Timbuktu
4 points · about 14 minutes
Unit 2
Phillis Wheatley's “On Being Brought from Africa to America”
4 points · about 14 minutes
Unit 2
Harriet Jacobs on enslaved women
4 points · about 14 minutes
Unit 3
Claude McKay's “If We Must Die”
4 points · about 14 minutes
Unit 4
The Kerner Commission, 1968
4 points · about 14 minutes
Short answer: visual source
You look at an image, artwork, photograph, map or chart (described in words here) and answer three or four short parts about what it shows, the developments behind it and connections across the course.
On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 2 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 3 parts (A–C). Plan on about 13 minutes for one.
Unit 1
Mansa Musa on the Catalan Atlas, 1375
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 2
The stowage plan of the slave ship Brookes
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 2
A portrait of Harriet Tubman, 1868–1869
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 3
Where Black Americans lived, 1910–1970
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 4
Protest on the Olympic podium, 1968
3 points · about 13 minutes
Short answer: course theme (no source)
With no source to read, you answer three or four short parts about a big theme that runs through several units, giving specific examples and explaining causes, comparisons, changes or significance.
On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 3 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 3 parts (A–C). Plan on about 13 minutes for one.
Units 1, 2 and 4
African cultural traditions across the diaspora
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 2
Freedom beyond the plantation: Florida, maroons and Indigenous nations
3 points · about 13 minutes
Units 1 and 3
Building Black institutions and the study of Black history
3 points · about 13 minutes
Unit 4
Strategies of the Black Freedom movement
3 points · about 13 minutes
Units 3 and 4
Pan-African connections in the twentieth century
3 points · about 13 minutes
Document-based question (DBQ)
You write an argument essay answering a question about a historical development, using at least three of five sources plus evidence you know, and explaining why the perspective, purpose, context or audience of at least two sources matters.
On the exam: Section II, question 4 (required): suggested 45 minutes, including reading the 5 sources; 12% of the score. Plan on about 45 minutes for one.
Unit 2
Black abolitionists debate the road to freedom, 1830–1860
7 points · about 45 minutes
Unit 2
The Haitian Revolution and the United States
7 points · about 45 minutes
Units 2 and 3
The meaning of freedom after emancipation, 1865–1877
7 points · about 45 minutes
Unit 3
Strategies for Black advancement, 1890–1925
7 points · about 45 minutes
Unit 4
The federal government and Black equality, 1930s–1960s
7 points · about 45 minutes