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Home > Comments from a Previous Chief Reader
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Comments from a Previous Chief Reader
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by Susan Bakewell
University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, Texas
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The following was written by Susan Bakewell, the Chief Reader for AP Art History, after the 2003 AP Reading.
Increasingly, this exam requires students to use their knowledge of art history to comment intelligently on works of art or art-historical documents or issues. (Some works or texts may well be new to students.) Many essay questions contain two tasks, asking first for factual information -- a work's art-historical period, its title, or the artist's name -- and then for analysis, often contextual in nature.
Context means, of course, surroundings, literally and figuratively. Since art history is interdisciplinary in nature, there's a wealth of contextual material to be considered and recent exams have asked a wide range of questions dealing with different kinds of contexts (cultural, economic, historical, political, religious, social, etc.). Of course, no one can, or will, know everything, and the exam's contextual querying doesn't expect that. What these questions are looking for is evidence of students' ability to apply their knowledge. Challenge students to think flexibly about images they encounter and to practice writing about works of art, known and unknown, from multiple vantage points.
The most common problem encountered on the exam is basic: many students write (often eloquently) about a given image or topic without taking trouble to ascertain what has been asked about that image or topic. Even when a question asks for visual analysis, the careful description that remains a key tool of the art historian, the question usually includes a contextual aspect as well. Most students have been well trained in visual analysis; not all make the connections to context required on the exam. Encourage students to read each question carefully and reflect on its requirements before beginning to respond. The minute or two spent conceptualizing and organizing an answer results in better essays. (There are blank spaces around each question in the test booklet that can be used to sketch a brief outline.)
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