Austin Cullinan

[Fr Matthew P. Schneider, LC🇻🇦 @FrMatthewLC]

We should pray for people's souls when they die and not dance on their graves.

This includes Lindsey Graham, whether you liked or hated him.

[gomi @parveen__tyagi]

writing will genuinely change your life more than motivation ever will. not in some cringe “manifest your dream life” way. i mean in a very real, practical way. most people never actually stop long enough to understand what’s going on inside their own head. they just react to life all day. scroll when they feel uncomfortable. distract themselves when things get quiet. jump from one dopamine hit to the next. but writing forces you to slow down for a second and actually look at your thoughts instead of running from them. and the weird part is you usually don’t even realize what you truly think until you start writing it down.

writing doesn’t just record your thoughts it creates them. ideas start flowing that you didn’t even know were there. patterns start showing up. emotions start making sense. problems become easier to solve because they’re no longer this giant fog floating around in your head. writing organizes your mind. every high performer, every sharp thinker, every person who just gets it, they all write. It keeps showing up as the common thread. not the expensive stuff. not the complex stuff. Just pen and paper. they write because feelings are vague but words are precise. every time they sit down and search for the exact word to describe what’s inside them, they become a sharper, more powerful communicator.

“people follow the person who can say what they mean and mean what they say. writing every day is how you build that muscle until it becomes second nature.”

over time, all that accumulated writing becomes a resource you can draw from forever. the more you write, the more material you have to solve problems, connect dots and think bigger.

the better you get at putting thoughts into words, the better you get at communicating in general. and honestly, communication controls a huge part of your life. like relationships, opportunities, business, confidence, influence, all of it comes down to how clearly you can express yourself. and no, you don’t need to be some amazing writer either. your grammar doesn’t need to be perfect. nobody cares. half the benefit comes from simply getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper.

some of the best writing advice i’ve ever heard was:

“write badly. just write.”

because the moment you stop trying to sound smart or perfect, your real thoughts finally start coming out.

even 30 minutes a day changes something in you. you become calmer because your mind isn’t carrying around a thousand unprocessed thoughts anymore. you become more self aware because you start noticing your own habits and emotional patterns. you become more articulate because you’re practicing turning feelings into language every single day.

if you write every day, your future self gets to sit down and read exactly how far you’ve come. i think that’s more valuable than any photo album.

who knows maybe one day all that writing becomes a book, a course, something you give your children. at the very least, it becomes proof that you were here, that you grew, that you tried.

that’s one of the coolest parts about it. writing lets you watch yourself evolve with time.

seriously. start writing. doesn’t matter if it’s in a notebook, your notes app, twitter wherever. just sit, think about your thoughts and write.

just sit down for 30 minutes and let your mind speak for once. and watch yourself becoming unstoppable.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@Acyn This is my romantic ideal — and it used to be (largely) true for a time. With the polarization caused by cable news and social media, I am not so sure it’s the case anymore.

[Trevor Packer @AP_Trevor]

The 2026 AP United States History Exam scores:
5: 14%; 4: 37%; 3: 23%; 2: 18%; 1: 8%

The 2026 AP United States History Exam was taken by ~554,000 students — roughly 3% of the U.S. high school population.

AP United States History Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ)

AP US History students performed solidly across the MCQ section, with an overall mean of 65% correct. A few patterns stood out:

• Students demonstrated the strongest performance on questions related to Period 1 (1491–1607), Period 2 (1607–1754), and Period 7 (1890–1945). More than 25% of students answered all these questions correctly.

• The most challenging MCQ content related to Period 4 (1754–1800) and Period 9 (1980–Present). About 5% of students answered each of these questions right.

AP United States History Free-Response Questions (FRQ)

Each AP exam has multiple versions for different time zones. I'll focus the commentary below on the version taken by most students:
https://t.co/cfoxz2QxB1

Since AP scores are reported on a 5-point scale, the free-response questions are designed to include tasks of varying difficulty to differentiate students across the full score range. Here is how students fared on each component:

SAQ 1, the Reconstruction historiography question, invited students to analyze passages from two professional historians who reached divergent conclusions about Reconstruction's outcomes and summon evidence related to each argument. This is typically the most difficult of the short-answer questions, mirroring the ways historians must evaluate multiple, contending perspectives. Students receiving AP 1s and 2s were not usually able to meet the demands of this challenging of a question, so SAQ 1 served to differentiate among AP 3s, 4s, and 5s, with students earning AP 3s able to accurately distill the arguments within the secondary sources, and students earning AP 4s and 5s consistently able to summon additional evidence related to the historians’ arguments.

SAQ 2, a primary source analysis, centered on a 1761 speech by Minweweh, a leader of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people, delivered to an English trader at Fort Detroit. Students were asked to identify Minweweh's purpose, explain the developments that produced the circumstances he describes, and trace consequences through 1840. This demanded careful attention to perspective, historical context, and cause and effect across more than eighty years of history. Students generally performed well on this question, with most students who received AP 2s able to demonstrate some relevant knowledge / skills and 27% of students earning all points possible.

SAQ 3, in which students described and explained the ideas, rise, and influence of the Patriot movement from 1765–1783, was the highest-scoring FRQ question on this year's exam. An impressive 45% of students earned all points possible here. This question also differentiated well across scores of 2, 3, and 4, as students receiving AP 2s were typically able to describe the movement’s ideas, unlike students receiving AP 1s. Students receiving AP 3s were generally able to earn most of the possible points, and students receiving AP 4s and 5s were typically earning all points possible.

SAQ 4 asked students to describe and explain the influences on and of the 1945–1970 civil rights movements. More challenging than SAQ 3, 27% of students earned all points possible on this question. The ability to describe a specific reform advocated by such movements differentiated between AP 2s and AP 3s, as students earning AP 3s were consistently able to do this, whereas students receiving AP 2s were not.

The Document-Based Question (DBQ) presented students with seven primary sources ranging from religious addresses and anonymous pamphlets to factory workers' recollections, legislative petitions, a magazine illustration, and speeches by Dorothea Dix and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Students were charged with evaluating the extent to which women’s participation in public life in the US changed from 1783 to 1855

Earning full marks requires reading and analyzing the seven sources, constructing a defensible thesis, providing historical context, analyzing documents for point of view and purpose, deploying outside evidence, and demonstrating complex understanding — a genuinely demanding set of tasks to complete within a 1-hour, proctored, AI-blocked window.

The DBQ serves well to differentiate students who qualify for college credit from those who don’t, as students receiving an AP 3+ score earned most of these points, whereas students earning 1s and 2s did not.

Crafting a historical claim / thesis: 81% of students earned the thesis point, a differentiator between AP scores of 1 and 2, as students receiving a 2 tended to earn this point, whereas students receiving a 1 did not.

Contextualization: the ability to situate their argument within a broader historical context differentiated AP scores of 3, 4, and 5 from lower scores, as students who earned a 3 or higher were typically demonstrating this knowledge and skill.

Use of evidence from the primary source documents: this skill also differentiated between AP scores of 1 and 2, as students receiving a 2 were able to extract at least some historical evidence from the documents, whereas students receiving a 1 were not. Students receiving a 4 or higher typically earned full points for this skill.

Outside evidence: The ability to summon additional evidence beyond the seven primary sources was knowledge that differentiated AP scores of 3 from AP scores of 4 and 5, as students achieving AP 4s and 5s were consistently able to demonstrate this skill, while students earning AP 3s often did not.

Sourcing: Similarly, students achieving AP 4s much more consistently earned the sourcing point — requiring them to explain how the point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience of two or more of the documents is relevant to their argument--than students earning AP 3s.

Complexity of analysis and reasoning: 17% of students earned the complex understanding point, the most demanding point on the DBQ, a differentiator between students achieving AP 5s, who are consistently earning this point, and students earning AP 4s, who are much less consistently earning this point within the intensity of timed, proctored essay writing.

Long Essay Questions: Students chose from three options:

LEQ 2, in which students evaluated how geography influenced European colonization in the Americas from 1500 to 1754, 14% of students — typically, those achieving AP 5s — earned all points possible. On the other end of the spectrum, students receiving AP 1s did not usually earn any points on this essay, while students receiving AP 2s were distinguished from those earning AP 1s by their ability to generate a thesis and/or some relevant evidence. Essays that qualified students for scores of 3 and 4 demonstrated multiple skills related to thesis, evidence, contextualization, and/or analysis and reasoning.

LEQ 3, in which students evaluated how westward expansion influenced US society from 1865 to 1898, was by far the most challenging of the three LEQ options. A key problem with these essays: responses often focused on aspects of westward expansion prior to the specified period. Accordingly, many students who selected this topic failed to generate a valid thesis statement (50% of the students who attempted this essay earned this point), let alone support it with accurate evidence, analysis, and reasoning. 6% of students earned all points possible for this essay.

In contrast, LEQ 4, in which students evaluated how politics influenced US society from 1945 to 2000, earned the highest overall scores of the three LEQs. 22% of students earned all points possible on it, and the majority of essays earned full points for use of evidence.

All said: very big congratulations to AP US History students and teachers this year. Working through a seven-document DBQ, analyzing competing scholarly interpretations of Reconstruction, reading a primary source from a Native American leader in 1761, and constructing sustained historical arguments spanning anywhere from fifty to five hundred years of American history — all within 2 hours and 10 minutes of free-response time that followed a similarly comprehensive multiple-choice section — is a genuine intellectual achievement. I'm impressed by the knowledge and historical thinking skills this exam invited students to develop and proud of what so many of them demonstrated.

All subjects' AP score distributions for 2026 will be posted here when available: https://t.co/OrkaQhPZYO.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@mtracey This demonization is entirely valid.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

What an embarrassment for the United States

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@ZachKraft7 Who cares? You’re being woke.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@CFBHome I think it looks pretty cool.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@TheDemocrats The caricature of “normal white guy” that the consultant class makes Democrat candidates like Walz and Talarico do loses elections.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@pnwprincess23 It should be mandatory curriculum in middle school and up. Teaching content to students with rudimentary thinking skills isn’t optimal.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@SoxSideJustin Those same Cubs fans are Bears fans whose annual Super Bowl is (maybe) beating the Packers.

[𝐠𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐫 @____selah]

how it feels to scroll twitter instead of tiktok

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@TVNewsNow @CoreyWriting Van Jones would be right if he was saying this about Manchin and Sinema 3 years ago, but (almost, not entirely) all of what Fetterman does on a daily basis is carry water for Trump.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

All this is to say, as strong as my disdain is for Putin and the Russian Federation, there needs to be some sort of off ramp that can make the Russians feel like they got something out of the Ukraine invasion… but Ukraine’s sovereignty needs to be guaranteed moving forward and I don’t see a way to do that outside of NATO membership. It’s a nearly impossible situation.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

There’s no way Russian oligarchs will tolerate someone as bumbling as Medvedev as president without Putin around to pull the strings. There will be some sort of conflict between Putinists and outright fascist “Z” types with the latter winning and ultimately tasking some like Igor Girkin — someone Putin jailed for being too much of an extremist — to lead the country.

[Wall Street Mav @WallStreetMav]

Maturing is realizing that we are all sIaves to the bottom 20 percent of society, far more than we are to the top 1 percent.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@curtis_yarvin High human capital is capable of telling the difference.

[Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 @JoshEakle]

The world will be worse off without Ben Sasse.

He would've made a great President.

[Austin Cullinan @ausculli]

@60Minutes Repealing the 17th Amendment is the first step.