The Blog @ TomRichey.net

AP US History Free-Response Sample Responses (2022)

5/15/2022

The 2022 AP US History Free-Response Questions have been released to the public! Click here to view the questions on the College Board's website.

2022 APUSH SAQ Sample Responses

Click here to view my sample responses to the 2022 APUSH SAQ items.

2022 APUSH DBQ Sample Response(s)

Click here to view my sample response(s) to the 2022 APUSH DBQ. This file will be updated to include several sample responses that would earn different point values.

2022 APUSH LEQ Sample Responses

This year's LEQ 2 asked students to assess the relative importance of causes for the settlement of the British colonies. Click here to see a set of sample responses I've put together for LEQ 2.

Take a look at my analysis of the 2022 APUSH Free-Response Questions on Marco Learning's YouTube channel:

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Italian and Northern Renaissance (AP Euro LEQ)

9/20/2018

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In 2016, I recorded a video explaining how to set up an LEQ comparing the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. The LEQ requires students to write an essay on a given topic focusing on one historical reasoning skill: comparison, continuity and change, or causation. The comparison format has been a favorite of the test makers and that is a good thing for students because it is fairly easy to do.

In order to provide further clarity, I have created a set of sample essays in response to an LEQ prompt comparing the Italian and the Northern Renaissance. Each sample essay includes a detailed explanation of how each point has been earned. Included in the packet are one essay that would receive a maximum score and three essays that would receive middling scores that would put a student on the path to passing an exam.

This set of sample responses is completely free, but please consider supporting my annual 8 Month Writing Clinic if you would like to see more sample essays like this. The 8 Month Writing Clinic is a subscription-based course that provides teachers and students with videos, sample essays, and other resources to help prepare for the writing sections of the AP US History, AP European History, and AP World History exams.

click here to download free sample essays

If you are a teacher who has participated in a recent AP Euro Reading, your feedback is always appreciated if you take issue with how I have awarded any of the points, please don't hesitate to contact me. Teachers with questions are more than welcome to contact me with questions, as well.

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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power

5/29/2016

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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power is a frequently searched topic on Google and YouTube, but until this week, there was little to be found in terms of an academic lecture on the subject. This week, I released a half hour lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power that is divided into three parts and is availabe on my YouTube channel.

Part I (1889-1921)

Click above to view the first part of my lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power.

The first part of the lecture starts at the beginning with Hitler's birth in Austria. As a boy, he encountered two philosophies that would impact him for the rest of his life: Pan-Germanism and Antisemitism. One of the most prominent politicians in Austria during Hitler's youth was Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna, whose Christian Social Party employed antisemitic propaganda in its campaign posters.

Hitler left Austria for Bavaria shortly before World War I and after the war broke out, he enlisted in the German Army. For a brief time after the war ended, Hitler continued his military service, embedding himself in the radical German Workers Party as a government agent. In this capacity, he became sympathetic to the party's anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist, and anti-Semitic messages and continued as an active member after he was discharged from the army.

Far-right parties like the German Workers Party embraced conspiracy theories, such as the "stabbed in the back" myth, which held Jews and Marxists responsible for the German defeat in World War I. Those who subscribed to this way of thinking believed that Germany had lost World War I because of internal enemies. After all, how else could Germany have been defeated by a coalition of British, French, and American forces representing two of the three largest industrialized nations of the day?

In 1920, the German Workers Party re-branded itself as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler played a key role in expanding the radical party's appeal both in his capacity as a gifted public speaker and in designing the party's swastika logo himself. In 1921, Hitler was elected as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Stabbed in the Back - Hitler's Rise to Power

This 1919 Austrian cartoon is representative of propaganda promoting the "Stabbed in the Back" myth after World War I.

Hitler and the Nazi Party

Part II (1921-1929)

Click above to view the second part of my lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power.

The 1920s transformed Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party from a relatively unknown fringe party into one of the leading political parties in Germany. In 1923, the Nazis attempted a paramilitary coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. This attempt to overthrow the German government by force was unsuccessful and led to the imprisonment of Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders. While in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a two volume work that was part biography and part political manifesto. Mein Kampf became a hugely popular work that allowed Hitler to share his political ideology with the disaffected classes in Weimar Germany.

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