The document-based question, or DBQ, is a defining feature of the AP World History exam. Of all the essays, this one tends to make students the most anxious. But much of this anxiety is misplaced. Once you understand the DBQ, you will feel less worried about it—and may even come to find it your favorite essay type. Unlike the other two essay types, where you have to call on your memory to provide all the evidence, the documents in the DBQ form the basic evidence you need to use.

To do well on a DBQ, you need to go beyond the content of the documents in order to set the context, make a clear argument, and analyze the documents properly. Using documents as evidence requires the sophisticated analysis skills we discussed in the section on “Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence.” That means that you have to consider the perspective or point of view of the documents. Every primary source—textual, visual, or statistical—was created for a specific purpose. That doesn’t mean the author had an agenda, although sometimes that is the case. But even if the author didn’t have an agenda, every document is limited and imperfect in the information it provides. Use the questions included on page lxix to interrogate each document, and then consider the limitations of each document before writing your DBQ. Then be sure to incorporate these insights about document limitations into the essay itself to make your essay more analytical—and therefore stronger.

Consider the example of a photo depicting indentured servants on a nineteenth-century sugar plantation. Students tend to view a document like that as a straightforward factual record. After all, we often hear that “pictures don’t lie.” But the picture was taken by someone for a particular purpose and the individuals are posed. So it’s worth asking why someone wanted this picture taken. What purpose would this picture serve? Since it’s posed, what’s left out of it? How might it misrepresent—or represent in a very limited way—the realities of the indentured experience?

You also need to corroborate your documents. That means bringing the documents into “conversation” with each other. Since the documents in a DBQ don’t directly refer to each other, you have to use your intuition to see connections. This relates to a distinctive task about the DBQ: you need to organize the evidence from the documents into several categories—usually at least three. The categories are sometimes stated or implied in the prompt, but you’ll often have to call on your knowledge of world history and the content of the documents themselves to determine what categories (and how many) make sense. Please note that you can use the same document multiple times, so that often gives you flexibility in coming up with categories.

Finally, you have to draw on your outside knowledge. To do well, you need to position the DBQ documents within the broader context of the period, drawing on what you’ve learned from your textbook, from your teacher, and from any outside reading or research that you’ve done. Feel free to mention other sources that you may have encountered previously in your answer, especially if they offer a perspective that is missing or if the addition of outside sources helps to support your argument.

Many students feel anxious about having to write the AP World History essays. But once you become familiar with the elements of each prompt and know how to address these prompts effectively, you’ll realize that there’s no reason to be stressed about this. In fact, you should feel confident as you approach the writing portion of the test. Unlike the multiple-choice portion of the AP exam, the essay section gives you a lot of freedom to demonstrate what you know in an open-ended way. And if you’ve been thinking historically, reading the text with that lens, and sharing your ideas in class, you may begin to look forward to the opportunity to show just how developed your historical thinking skills are.