2023

AP United States
®

History
Sample Student Responses
and Scoring Commentary
Set 1

Inside:

Short-Answer Question 4
R Scoring Guidelines
R Student Samples
R Scoring Commentary

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AP® United States History 2023 Scoring Guidelines

Question 4: Short Answer No Stimulus 3 points

General Scoring Notes

• Each point is earned independently.
• Accuracy: These scoring guidelines require that students demonstrate historically defensible content
knowledge. Given the timed nature of the exam, responses may contain errors that do not detract from
their overall quality, as long as the historical content used to advance the argument is accurate.
• Clarity: Exam responses should be considered first drafts and thus may contain grammatical errors.
Those errors will not be counted against a student unless they obscure the successful demonstration of
the content knowledge, skills, and practices described below.
• Describe: Provide the relevant characteristics of a specified topic. Description requires more than simply
mentioning an isolated term.
• Explain: Provide information about how or why a historical development or process occurs or how or
why a relationship exists.

(A) Briefly describe one way that agricultural interests influenced societal debates in the United 1 point
States from 1865 to 1900.
Examples that earn this point include the following:
• Western farmers demanded more government regulations of transportation.
• Westward expansion by farmers led to increased debates over access to Native
American lands.
• Economic instability inspired agrarian activists to support the People’s Party, which
called for a stronger governmental role in regulating the American economic system.
• Acquisition of land from Mexico before the Civil War led to continued debates about
American farmers’ access to land owned by Mexican Americans.
• The need for labor on plantations led to debates about the treatment of formerly
enslaved people after the Civil War.
• The high cost of shipping farm goods led to debates about government regulation of the
railroads.
• After the end of the Civil War, there were debates about whether the government
should provide land for African Americans or if White plantation owners should
continue to own most land in the South.
• The South’s heavy dependence on agriculture led to debates about whether the region
should focus on industrialization.

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AP® United States History 2023 Scoring Guidelines
(B) Briefly explain one similarity in how agriculture influenced the development of two 1 point
regions in the United States from 1865 to 1900.
Examples that earn this point include the following:

• Farming was a major economic activity in the South and West, so there was not as
much industrialization in these regions.
• The economic hardship faced by sharecroppers in the South and homesteaders in the
West led to the rise of agrarian activists in both regions.

Examples that earn this point might include the following, if appropriate elaboration is
provided:
• The impact of the dependence on agriculture on urbanization in both the South and
West
• The role of agriculture in the displacement of Native American peoples in multiple
areas of the West
• The changes brought to farming by technology in multiple regions of the West

(C) Briefly explain one difference in how agriculture influenced the development of two 1 point
regions in the United States from 1865 to 1900.
Examples that earn this point include the following:
• Plantation farming in the South led to the rise of sharecropping, but this did not
happen in the West, where there were more independent farmers.
• Agriculture in the West was more diverse, leading to an economy that depended
heavily on farming and ranching. However, the South remained mostly dependent on
growing cotton.
• The expansion of agriculture led to the acceleration of the government forcibly
relocating Native Americans in the West to reservations from 1865 to 1900; however,
in the Southeast, the government had already removed most Native Americans by
this time.

Examples that earn this point might include the following, if appropriate elaboration is
provided:
• Differences in support for the Populists in various regions
• Impact of the New South
• Ranching vs. farming in different areas of the West

Total for question 4 3 points

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Page 1 of 1 4A
A. One way that agriculture influenced societal debates was through the need of labor. After slavery was abolished
in the Civil War, the South no longer had a reliable labor source in order to keep their agricultural economy,
effectively threatening further collapse even after the war. This shows how agriculture influenced societal debates,
as it made the south question how they should replace slavery as a labor source in order to keep their agricultural
economy.

B. One way in how agriculture helped develop two regions in the United States was the settlement of the West and
the growth of the New South through industrial means. Once Reconstruction was over, technological developments
such as interchangeable parts allowed farmers to more efficiently farm in the West to dominate the smaller farmers
and allow the mass production of farming goods, while industrial centers such as factories in the South helped the
conversion of cotton into textiles, which soon overshadowed the North in terms of textile production. This shows
how the desire to spread agriculture in the West and maintain it in the South combined with technological
developments helped give rise to production of goods in agricultural-related industries.

C. One difference in how agriculture influenced the development of regions in the United States was the Midwest
and North. While the Midwest was a center of agriculture where farmers could thrive given the right technological
tools and the will to dominate much smaller farmers, the North was much less affected by the agriculture in the
West, and therefore focused more on expanding their urban centers for immigrants to live in while shipping in food
farmed in the West in railroads to minimally feed them. This shows how while agriculture helped the West generate
more business, agriculture in the North was less direct and was therefore only able to contribute to minimally
feeding the influx of immigrants looking for economic opportunity and escaping religious persecution from
Southern and Eastern Europe.
Page 1 of 1 4B
a. Sharecropping influenced societal debates shortly after the civil war, because having recently been freed, formerly
enslaved people had little skill other than farming practice, and society was placed with a debate on how to integrate
freed people into society. One of the ways that the South tackled this debate was the institution of the controversial
Sharecropping system, that wasn't very different from slavery to begin with.
b. A similarity between the South region and the Great Plains region was that agriculture practices had been opened
up to formerly enslaved people, as their citizenship and property owning rights had just been guaranteed by the 14th
and 15th amendments. Both in the west and in the south, wealthy and opurtunistic black people worked towards
being able to own farms through a farmhand system in states like Kansas and Oklahoma in the Great Plains, and
Alabama and Mississippi in the South.
c. A difference between the North and the South regions was that in the South agricultural practices had been
completely changed as the farming industry in the Sotuh had been reliant on slavery for crop production before the
civil war, and now after 1865 had to change their system. In the north however, agriculture was largely unaffected
Page 1 of 1 4C
A. One way that agriculture influenced societal debate to North America from 1865 to 1900 was the establishment
of sharecropping in the South, a system created for freed slaves that allowed them to work for a land owner in
exchange for shelter, and it influenced societal debates like equal rights and economic rights for Black people during
a time where the South was trying so hard to restrict their rights.

B. One similarity in how agriculture influenced the development of two regions in the United States from 1865 to
1900 was the business of crops like cotton in the South that gave the resources to industrial companies in the North
the ability to create assembly line products.

C. One difference in how agriculture influenced the development of two regions in the United States from 1865 to
1900 was the South's reluctance to industrialize compared to the North and West. The South held strong belief in
their agricultural society, and intended to keep it that way.
AP® United States History 2023 Scoring Commentary

Short Answer Question 4

Note: Student samples are quoted verbatim and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.

Overview

• The question asked students to describe a way in which agricultural interests influenced a
societal debate in the United States from 1865 to 1900.
• Students were asked to identify and explain one similarity and one difference in how
agriculture impacted the development of two different regions in the United States.
• Responses had to use comparison with two different regions in the United States and explain
relevant evidence that showed a development influenced by agriculture for each region.
• This question focused on the comparison of historical developments in two different regions
of the United States that were influenced by agriculture from 1865 to 1900.
• This question generally addressed Topics 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, 6.8, and 6.12.

Sample: 4A
Score: 3

The response to part (a) earned 1 point by accurately describing how the South struggled to replace
its workforce after the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War.

The response to part (b) earned 1 point by explaining the effect of technology on the development of
agriculture in both the West and in the “New South.”

The response to part (c) earned 1 point by explaining the differences between the West, which relied
on its growing agricultural industry, and the North which relied less on its own agriculture and
instead expanded its factory systems. The North relied on Western agriculture to feed “the influx of
immigrants.”

Sample: 4B
Score: 2

The response to part (a) earned 1 point by accurately describing how sharecropping influenced
debates regarding the integration of formerly enslaved people into society.

The response to part (b) earned 1 point by explaining how African Americans had increased
economic opportunities on farms in the West and the South.

The response to part (c) did not earn a point because it does not explain how agriculture influenced
the development of the North.

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AP® United States History 2023 Scoring Commentary

Short Answer Question 4 (continued)

Sample: 4C
Score: 1

The response to part (a) earned 1 point by accurately describing how sharecropping influenced
debates over equal rights and economic rights.

The response to part (b) did not earn a point because it lacks specifics regarding how agriculture
influenced the development of the South from 1865 to 1900 and lacks any explanation of how
agriculture developed industrial companies in the North.

The response to part (c) did not earn a point because it does not accurately explain how agriculture
influenced the development of the North or the West.

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