AP U.S. History · Free-response skill

Group documents and add outside evidence

The move. Group documents that give the same reason and add one piece of specific outside evidence that is not in any document.

How to do it

  1. Start with a claim that answers the question and names the main ways it is true. A claim gives you something to group documents under; a list of documents does not.
  2. Group documents by what they argue, not by the order they are printed in. Two documents belong together when they give the same reason or make the same point, even if different people wrote them for different readers.
  3. When you state what a group of documents shares, point to words in each document that show it. A point that only one of the documents makes is not a shared point.
  4. Outside evidence is a specific fact you bring yourself: a named event, law, person or program that no document mentions. It must fit the time and place in the question.
  5. Do not just name outside evidence. Add a sentence that says what it did to people or institutions, and how that supports your claim.
  6. On the exam the document-based question gives seven documents and focuses on 1754 to 1980; this practice version uses five so you can focus on grouping.

Practice prompt Try it

Document 1. Harry S. Truman, Executive Order 9835, March 21, 1947 (adapted): "There shall be a loyalty investigation of every person entering the civilian employment of any department or agency of the executive branch of the Federal Government. ... The standard for the refusal of employment or the removal from employment in an executive department or agency on grounds relating to loyalty shall be that, on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States." Document 2. U.S. Department of Justice, brief for the United States filed with the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, December 1952: "Racial discrimination furnishes grist for the Communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith." Document 3. Federal-Aid Highway Act, passed by Congress, June 29, 1956 (adapted): "It is hereby declared to be essential to the national interest to provide for the early completion of the 'National System of Interstate Highways' ... Because of its primary importance to the national defense, the name of such system is hereby changed to the 'National System of Interstate and Defense Highways'." Document 4. National Defense Education Act, passed by Congress, September 2, 1958: "The Congress hereby finds and declares that the security of the Nation requires the fullest development of the mental resources and technical skills of its young men and women. The present emergency demands that additional and more adequate educational opportunities be made available." Document 5. Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell address, January 17, 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Documents 1 to 5 are works of the U.S. government (public domain). Documents 1 and 3 are adapted: passages are joined, and the words between them are left out.

Read the five documents. Then, drawing on them and on what you know, answer each part about this question: How did the Cold War change life inside the United States from 1947 to 1961?

  1. Write a claim that answers the question by naming at least one way the Cold War changed life inside the United States.
  2. Documents 3 and 4 give the same reason for a new federal program at home. State that reason.
  3. Name one specific person, event or law from 1947 to 1961, not mentioned in any document, that shows fear of communism at home.
  4. Say what the example you gave in part c did to people or institutions in the United States.

Write each part, then check yourself against the checklist. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Check yourself and see a model answer

Checklist

Our own checklist of what a full answer does, one line per point. Tick each one your response earns.

0 of 4 points

Model answer, annotated

(a) The Cold War made national security a reason to change life at home: it brought loyalty checks and fear of disloyalty, new federal spending on highways, schools and defense, and pressure to end segregation because segregation hurt the nation's image abroad.

  • Point 1 A claim that answers the question and names specific domestic effects of the Cold War.

(b) Both documents justify a new federal program by national defense: the highway law renames the roads because of their 'primary importance to the national defense,' and the education law says that 'the security of the Nation' requires better-trained young people.

  • Point 2 States the shared reason, national defense and security, with words from each document.

(c) The Hollywood blacklist: after hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, movie studios refused to hire writers and actors suspected of Communist ties.

  • Point 3 A specific example from the period of anticommunist fear at home that no document mentions.

(d) The blacklist ended the careers of many writers and actors because of their suspected political beliefs, not because of any crime, and it taught others in the film industry to avoid joining groups or speaking out.

  • Point 4 States what the blacklist itself did: it ended careers over suspected beliefs and made others afraid to join groups.