here are a bunch of historical documents and here's what you look like when you're trying to understand here's the thing you're going to see a metric buttload of these on your APUSH AP World and AP Euro exam and if you don't have a reliable method for interpreting them quickly you burn so that's what I'm going to help you with in this video and by the end I'm going to give you a little secret for what to do when you have no idea what a document means so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it step one to interpreting documents read The Prompt or question now you're going to get documents in your multiple choice your saqs and your dbqs and you are going to be sorely tempted to just start reading the document so you can try to understand it hear me now do not start there that will waste your time start by reading the prompt or the question attached to the document and here's why remember that the purpose of these AP History courses is to get you to think like an historian and working historians don't just read and analyze documents for funsies a historian always has a purpose for trying to understand a document like there's a question in their mind and they're trying to see if this document can somehow answer that question so that's what you need to do as well you have to start by reading the prompt or the questions in the multiple choice only then do you have any sense of what you're going to be looking for in this document I mean one document could potentially be used to answer a thousand different questions but you only have one question to answer and that question needs to inform what you're looking for in the document so on a practical note when you open your exam start by reading the questions or the prompt and marking it up for multiple choice quickly read the cluster of questions attached to the document and circle or underline the main idea and the historical thinking skill like this contribued most directly enactment of the law and actions immediately led to okay so this tells me I'm going to need to understand what the document is saying and I'm going to need to know what caused the events it describes and what its effects were and do the same thing with your saqs and dbqs you've got to know what to look for before you start reading all right step two read the document now this step can be broken down into two substeps and I know this is starting to sound confusing but stick with me the more you practice this the more second nature it'll become first read The Source or attribution of the document in my experience this is the most skipped step among students but it is so important these couple of lines are going to give you a variety of information depending on the document it'll tell you who wrote it or what kind of document it is or in what context it was written or what year it was written or some combination of all of those and the date is important it's going to help you put this document in context of what else was going on and that's going to help you answer the questions that follow and then knowing whether you're reading a personal letter or a Royal Decree can change the way you understand it in some cases they even tell you how to interpret this document here it says that this cartoon is from a satirical magazine called Puck so you already know just by reading this that the realities portrayed here will be exaggerated and critical like that's what satire is and all of that will get you a long way before you even start reading the document which is step to read the document or look at the image and you need to do this pretty quickly and all you're looking for is the main idea that relates to your question or the prompt what does this documents say about the question that you're considering and once you understand that step three summarize the document now is the time that you need to write a short summary of the contents of this document now you probably don't have enough time to do this for the multiple choice sections but you should definitely do this for the saqs and the DBQ you know try to keep your summary to one sentence maybe two and for this document maybe it would look like this the dge imperal government in Java needs more laborers for their factories but most peasants are already overloaded with other work to meet Dutch demand do yourself a favor and pause this read that document read my summary it will help now I'll tell you in a moment what to do if you don't understand a document but just let me explain why this summary can help you earn more points on the SAQ and the DBQ in both of those kinds of writings you're going to need to support your arguments with the documents and you get no points for quoting the document but if you summarize it in your own words then you can use those words in your answer and show how that document serves as evidence okay so what if I can't understand the document this is the moment of panic right you got this old dusty document full of words or Imes that you can't understand and you just can't seem to crack that nut so what do you do well I'm going to assume that you have a decent grasp of the content of your course and if you don't well there's not much you can do but if you've been studying and you're relatively prepared here's something you can do in this situation try to answer the question or the prompt with only what you find in the attribution for that document and let me show you this is document 7 from the 2019 AP World History DBQ and it wins the prize for the most confusing document in the exam's history so many students had no idea what to make of this image but look the has to do with how the Portuguese transformed Maritime trade in the Indian Ocean and now look here this tells you that the box was made in India specifically for export to Portugal so here's the thing you don't even need to look at the image to know exactly how this document addresses the promp just by looking at these two lines without even looking at the image you can find out that the Portuguese had transformed the Indian Ocean trade so significantly that local markets in India were making luxury goods primarily for export to Portugal it's all right there so if you just can't understand the document and you are out of ideas just rely on the information you already have in your brain and see if you can combine it with the information here and maybe just maybe you can make the connection all right click here to find out what to do with your documents once you've interpreted them and click here to grab my AP review packs that are going to help you get a five on that exam in May I'll catch you on the flipflop I'm L out