AP U.S. History · Free-response skill

Change and continuity over time

The move. Show continuity and change over time: name both, then support each side with specific evidence and a sentence that ties it to what came before.

How to do it

  1. A question about change over time asks two things at once: what changed and what stayed the same. Name one of each early, so the reader sees your line of reasoning from the start.
  2. For a change, give a specific piece of evidence and then compare it with what came before. The comparison is the point: without the 'before', a fact does not show change.
  3. For a continuity, give a specific piece of evidence and then name the older policy, goal or practice it carried on. Continuity is easy to overlook, so look for goals and tools that lasted while the details shifted.
  4. Specific evidence means a named event, law, policy or person, placed in time. A general phrase such as 'the country got more involved in the world' earns little.
  5. Use different evidence for the change and for the continuity, and keep your main evidence inside the dates in the question.
  6. On the exam the long essay is one question with about 40 minutes recommended, and College Board revised the long essay questions starting with the May 2027 exam, so read the current directions before test day.

Practice prompt Try it

Answer each part about this question: What changed and what stayed the same in U.S. foreign policy from 1980 to 2008?

  1. In a sentence or two, name one way U.S. foreign policy changed from 1980 to 2008 and one way it stayed the same.
  2. Give one specific U.S. foreign-policy event, policy or action from 1980 to 2008 that you will use as evidence of change.
  3. Say what U.S. policy had been before the evidence in part b, and how the evidence departs from it.
  4. Give a different U.S. foreign-policy event, policy or action from 1980 to 2008, not the one in part b, that you will use as evidence of continuity.
  5. Name an earlier U.S. policy, goal or practice that the evidence in part d carried on, and say how it carried it on.

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 5 points

Model answer, annotated

(a) From 1980 to 2008 U.S. foreign policy moved away from containing the Soviet Union, and after 2001 fighting terrorist groups became its center, but the nation kept relying on permanent alliances, above all NATO, and a global military presence.

  • Point 1 Names a change (from containing the Soviet Union to fighting terrorism) and a continuity (NATO and a global military presence).

(b) After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States declared a war on terror and invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to remove the Taliban government that sheltered al-Qaeda.

  • Point 2 Specific, dated evidence of a change: the war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan.

(c) Before this, U.S. policy had centered for four decades on containing the Soviet Union, a rival state with a huge army and nuclear weapons. After 2001 the main enemy was a terrorist network that was not a state, so the nation went to war against such groups and the governments that hid them.

  • Point 3 States the earlier policy (containing the Soviet Union) and how the war on terror departs from it.

(d) NATO did not disappear when the Cold War ended: in 1999 the United States helped admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as new members of the alliance.

  • Point 4 Different, specific, dated evidence of continuity: keeping and enlarging NATO.

(e) Enlarging NATO carried on the alliance the United States had formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe. The members and the threats changed, but the nation still relied on a permanent military alliance in Europe.

  • Point 5 Names the 1949 NATO alliance and says how enlarging it carried that commitment on.