AP Art History
In 2021, AP Art History will be offered in person on:
- Test Date: Friday May 15 2020, 12:00 PM EDT
- Score Release Date: July 2021
Student's Choice Study Book:
2021 Test Information and Resources
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Test Details
The AP Art History exam will consist of 2 online free response questions. The total time for the exam will be 45 minutes. The test is open note and open book. Read more about the College Board's academic integrity policy.
Time on the exam will be divided between two questions. Each question will have a 5 minute upload period for students to submit their work. After a student submits their work for the first question, they will not be able to return back to it.
Units Covered
The units covered on the 2021 AP Art History exam will be adjusted to encourage fairness amongst students who have missed varying levels of school due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Units covered: Units 1–6
Units not covered: Units 7–10
Test Questions
Essay: Comparison
Question #1
Time: 25 minutes
Weight: 65%
Question 1 is a long essay question that assesses students’ ability to compare 2 works of art:
- The first work is required and is part of the image set. Although an image of this work will be provided as part of the question prompt, there will be no identifying information.
- The second work is selected by the student from a list of suggested works from the required image set (but with no images provided). Students may instead select a different work of art from any content area to compare with the required work.
This question assesses students’ ability to do the following:
- Use specific and relevant evidence to explain how the 2 works of art are similar and different in how they convey meaning.
- Use specific and relevant evidence to explain the meaning or significance of similarities and differences between the 2 works of art.
Short Essay: Continuity and Change
Question #2
Time: 15 minutes
Weight: 35%
Question 2 is a short essay question that assesses students’ ability to analyze the relationships between a work of art from the image set (image provided as part of the question prompt, but without any identifying information) and a related artistic tradition, style, and/or practice. This question assesses students’ ability to do the following:
- Explain how or why the work of art demonstrates continuity or change within an artistic tradition or practice.
- Analyze meaning or significance of an art historical interpretation of the work of art provided.
AP Art History: Popular Resources
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Share your resource »Academic Integrity
College Board is taking a strong stance against cheating on the 2021 online Art History test. The following anti-cheating measures will be deployed on testing day to prevent cheating amongst students:
- Submitted work will be run through plaigarism detection tools (similar to TurnItIn)
- College Board will watch online resources looking for collaboration amongst students (shared Google Documents, Discord groups, internet forums)
- Teachers will review the student's submitted work and are encouraged to inform the College Board if the work looks different than what a student normally produces.
- College Board will use additional unreleased heuristics to determine whether or not students have cheated in any way.
Students found violating the academic integrity policy will suffer severe consequences, including:
- If found cheating, test scores will be cancelled.
- If found distributing exam content or exam responses, or found coordinating effors to distribute exam content or responses, the student will will be blocked from testing and their scores will be cancelled.
- Students found in violation of any academic integrity violations will have their high school notified of the violation, and action can be taken accordingly at the high school level.
- Additionally, any organization the student has sent or will send College Board score reports to will be notified of the academic integrity policy violation.
- Students who violate the policy will further be barred from taking any additional College Board exams such as the SAT or AP tests.
- In certain situations, College Board will include local law enforcement to determine if prosecution of the student is possible.
- If you have knowledge of online cheating occuring, please notify the College Board. Reports are anonymous and can be made online.