<p>Which of these two essay types do you feel is more difficult?</p>
<p>I had never written a APUSH DBQ until the AP exam but I thought it was harder than the free response. I made a five.</p>
<p>well i took it last year and it really depends on the topic. The DBQ was on the revolutionary war so i thought it was easy since i was loaded with facts. the second essay was about manifest destiny and the mexican war i was loaded with facts also so it was ok. The third one was a problem. we barely finished the 60s and there was a question on the civil rights movement. I just put some small facts i remembered and finished the essay. strangely i had over 15 minutes left.</p>
<p>i got a five btw</p>
<p>if you know nothing about the time period, dbq's at least give you a bit of inspiration or spark. if you know stuff about the time period, it shouldn't matter. </p>
<p>overall, i hate dbq's b/c you have to use their examples.
but i got a 5, so it's all good.</p>
<p>For me, the DBQ was harder because I was forced to build my essay and arguments around certain documents, instead of my own ideas. It's limiting to me, and I often find it awkward to use the documents too.</p>
<p>I had friends though, who found the DBQ much easier. They said it helped them to have the documents as "hints" on what the essay should be about. I could see that, it just wasn't really the case for me.</p>
<p>I thought the DBQ was pretty easy because we had done a practice DBQ on pretty much the same topic less than a month before. The trick is to read the question, formulate an answer in your head, and only AFTER you have an idea about what you want to write about look at the documents.</p>
<p>I got a 5.</p>
<p>yeah i think DBQs are harder to because it has to include certain points and essays are more flexible, you can incorporate any ideas to help support the thesis. i got a 4. but i left 21 blank.</p>
<p>DBQs are easier to BS eheh. Luckily, the DBQ was really easy last year. The FRQ were killer though. I made a 5 as well.</p>
<p>It really depends on the topic. Sometimes DBQs are easier than FRQs because they give you plenty of additional information to structure your essay around. Other times the documents feel like they just get in the way. I thought the Revolution DBQ was kind of hard because I hadn't studied or written about anything close to it for most of the year. You really don't need to have good scores on the essays to get a 5 though. If you get most of the MC, then you only need like 4s or 5s on the essays to get a 5 on the exam. If you get stuck on either the DBQs or the FRQs, just write about anything related that you can think of.</p>
<p>Flipsta is right. If you don't think you're going to do well on the essays, really focus on the multiple choice. Since most people (even some who get fives) get 75% or less of those right, getting more correct can really boost your score and put a lot less pressure on the essays.</p>
<p>I found the DBQs a bit harder because I, like vegangirl, had issues structuring the essay around the documents provided. I think my concentration on the multiple choice helped my score. I got a 5.</p>
<p>I think that you really need to concentrate on the multiple choice. I read that before grading the essay's the graders will pull up your score on the multiple choice section and make sure that the results on that part will correspond to your essay score. After taking the test I felt like i had done really well on the multiple choice but yet I felt like i bombed at least two of the essay's. I was therefore very surprised to get a five. To really answer your question I thought that the DBQ was the hardest. This is because you are supposed to analyze their facts and add some of your own. On the 2005 test however the facts they gave did not make any sense so you were forced to pull most of the knowledge out of your head. It all really depends on the topic and how much you know about it.</p>
<p>There is no way the graders pull up your MC score to make sure it corresponds to your essay.</p>
<p>DBQ's a definetly harder. I thought I blew it but I somehow got a 5</p>
<p>DBQ's are just plain evil. I mean they just are. My entire class groaned every time my teacher when we had one assigned. They're hard because you have to analyze material and understand what each document is saying. They are more time consuming than regular essays, and you have to get used to them. You've been writing essays forever but chances are a DBQ is something new :p</p>
<p>one time, my hist teacher gave us a DBQ with documents A-U (or something ridiculous like that) to do in 45 mins. :p</p>
<p>Just look in the Princeton Review AP book and it says that a computer will bring your scores up to make sure that there is not a huge difference between your essay score and MC score. It is another way to make sure that the graders are not just scanning and being lazy. If a huge difference exists than the table leader has to look at the essay's again. Maybe I read this in the Kapplan book. Anyway I thought it was pretty cool.</p>
<p>Hmm...if that is true then it is pretty cool. I bet the table leader is the only one involved in that though, because I never heard anything about it from my USHAP teacher, who is an essay grader for the test.</p>