Document 7
Source: Open letter circulated by anonymous women’s group in Romania, addressed
to Elena Ceausescu, wife of Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, 1980.
Published in French periodical in 1981.
Where is our agricultural produce, dear “First Lady of the country”*? We would dearly
love to know it, from yourself, in your capacity of communist woman, wife and mother,
where is our foodstu? Where on earth could one nd cheese, margarine, butter, cooking
oil, the meat which one needs to feed the folk of this country?
By now, you should know, Mrs. Ceausescu, that after so many exhausting hours of labor
in factories and on building sites we are still expected to rush about like mad, hours on
end, in search of food to give our husbands, children, and grandchildren something to eat.
You should know that we may nd nothing to buy in the state-owned food shops,
sometimes for days or weeks on end. And nally if one is lucky to nd something, as we
must stand in endless lines, which in the end stop all desire to eat and even to be alive!
Sometimes we would even feel like dying, not being able to face the suering, the utter
misery and injustice that is perpetrated on this country.
*First lady Elena Ceausescu was known for her lavish lifestyle.
Scoring the Response
For the document-based question, a good response should:
n
respond to the question with an evaluative thesis that makes a historically defensible
claim. The thesis must consist of one or more sentences located in one place, either in the
introduction or the conclusion. Neither the introduction nor the conclusion is necessarily
limited to a single paragraph.
n
describe a broader historical context immediately relevant to the question that relates the
topic of the question to historical events, developments, or processes that occur before,
during, or after the time frame of the question. This description should consist of more than
merely a phrase or a reference.
n
explain how at least one additional piece of specic historical evidence, beyond those
found in the documents, relates to an argument about the question. (This example must be
dierent from the evidence used to earn the point for contextualization.) This explanation
should consist of more than merely a phrase or a reference.
n
use historical reasoning to explain relationships among the pieces of evidence provided in
the response and how they corroborate, qualify, or modify the argument, made in the thesis,
that addresses the entirety of the question. In addition, a good response should utilize the
content of at least six documents to support an argument about the question.
n
explain how the documents’ point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is
relevant to the argument for at least four of the documents.
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© 2017 The College Board
AP World History Practice Exam
Section II, Part A
40