The EBQ: Scaffolds and Strategies for AP® Psychology Students

AP Psychology is entering its third year of the revised Course and Exam Description (CED). Here’s a breakdown of each part of the Evidence-Based Question (EBQ), along with tips for how students can approach their responses, plus key updates from the 2025 AP Reading to keep your instruction aligned with current expectations.

In the EBQ, students are given a prompt and three sources, which are summaries of peer-reviewed academic research articles. They are asked to propose a claim and defend it using evidence from the article and psychological reasoning drawn from those sources.

Part A: The Claim

Students make a claim that responds to the prompt.

Key tip:

• Simplify the claim. The broader the claim, the easier it is to find evidence for it. If a student’s claim is too narrow, they may not be able to find two supporting pieces of evidence in the articles. Claims should be one to two sentences. If students write more than that, it probably means the claim is too complex. The claim must be defensible, it should take a clear position related to the articles that have been presented.

This is the foundation for the rest of the response, so it's worth slowing down here. A claim that's too narrow, vague, or too ambitious will make the next points harder to earn. A good habit to recommend to students is to have them refer back to the claim after each portion of the response to be certain that each part of the response directly relates to the claim.

Part B(i) and C(i): Evidence

Next, students support their claim with a piece of evidence, each time pulling from a different one of the three sources. In B(i) they use a piece of evidence from a chosen source and in C(i) they will need to select a piece of evidence from a different source. If a student can find a quote that supports the claim, that would be the best option, but if not, it is alright to paraphrase from the article, as long as the student does not try to summarize the entire article. Explain to students that the purpose of the evidence is to support the claim, not explain the article.

Key tips:

• Students must explicitly cite the source they are using (e.g., "Source 1 indicates that…"). Skipping this citation means the point can't be earned, no matter how clear the evidence is.
• Evidence in Part C must come from a different source than the source used in Part B. This means that only two of the three provided sources will be used in a student’s response.

Part B(ii) and C(ii): Reasoning and Application

In part B(ii), students will explain how the evidence from Part B (i) supports their claim using a psychological perspective, theory, concept, or research finding learned in AP Psychology. This is worth two points. One point is for explaining how the evidence supports the claim and the second point is earned when the student discusses how a psychological concept/perspective/theory from AP Psychology explains the evidence or supports the claim. They will follow the exact same procedure for C(ii), which is also worth two points.

• Point 1 (Reasoning): Explain why the evidence supports the claim.
• Point 2 (Application): Connect the evidence to a psychological perspective, theory, or concept from the course.

Key tips:

• We recommend avoiding using Unit 0 (research methods) content for the application point. The exam is looking for content knowledge here rather than methodology. While these points may occasionally score, it is good to think of the AAQ as the “research question” and save research concepts for that FRQ.
• While students can earn points for discussing perspectives, they must be very specific about how that perspective relates to their claim and evidence. Often students discuss perspectives in broad terms and do not earn credit, they may be better served by selecting specific terms, concepts, or theories from within a perspective.
• Students cannot use terms that are directly stated in the source. For example, if the source discusses dopamine, students can’t use dopamine as their term. Students should be certain to scan all of the articles including the article they are not using to make sure the terms they want to use in their response are not in any of the articles.
• The psychological concept used in Part C must be different from the one used in Part B. Students cannot recycle a concept/theory/perspective.

A useful way to structure the reasoning section of the response:

1. State specific reasoning for why the evidence supports the claim.
2. Name, underline, and briefly define the psychological term, theory, or perspective.
3. Explain how that concept explains the evidence or supports the claim.

Instructional Tips

We have found that, especially early on in teaching EBQs, it is very helpful to provide sentence starters for students. You may want to consider the following:

For B(i) and C(i): “Source 1 indicates that…”

For B(ii) and C(ii): “This evidence supports my claim because…” and “This evidence is explained by (psychological term, theory, perspective) because…”

OR “The (psychological term, theory, perspective) supports my claim because…”

A note on definitions: Encourage students to define the term, theory, or perspective they're using in both B(ii) and C(ii). It is the responsibility of the student to demonstrate that they understand the meaning of the term/concepts/theory they have selected and the easiest way to convey this is to define it. It signals to the reader scoring the exam that they actually understand the concept, and can do more than just name it.

By underlining the term, it leaves no doubt as to which term/concept/theory the student is using as sometimes other psychological terms can come up in the explanation.

To build student confidence and scaffold the writing process of EBQs:

• Start with claim-writing practice in isolation. Give students a prompt and have them generate three or four possible claims, then discuss which ones would be easiest to defend.
• Drill source citation as a habit early. Students who forget to name their source in low-stakes practice will forget it on the exam too.
• Start with small snippets of articles from which students can make a claim, take evidence and apply a psychological concept, before moving on to fully summarized articles.
• Practice pairing evidence with two different concepts before asking students to write a full B and C response. This is often the hardest habit to build.
• Use partial EBQs (just B or just C) for low-stakes reps before having students tackle a full scale EBQ.
• Have students work in small groups, before working alone, and go over examples of excellent responses in class (many can be found on AP Central from past AP exam questions), to provide students with a model of what an excellent response looks like.