AP U.S. History Practice Questions (Free, with Answers)

Getting ready for the AP U.S. History exam? These 20 free practice questions cover all nine periods of the course, each with a clear explanation. Like the real exam, every question is tied to a short source, either a primary document excerpt or a brief historical summary. Read the source, try the question on your own, then tap Show answer to check your thinking.

The questions are written in the style of the multiple-choice section of the exam. They’re a quick way to find out which periods you’ve mastered and which ones need more review.

What the AP U.S. History exam covers

• Period 1 (1491–1607): Native American societies, European exploration, the Columbian Exchange and Spanish colonization
• Period 2 (1607–1754): English, French, Dutch and Spanish colonies, the growth of slavery and the Atlantic economy
• Period 3 (1754–1800): the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution, the Constitution and the early republic
• Period 4 (1800–1848): Jacksonian democracy, the Market Revolution, reform movements and westward expansion
• Period 5 (1844–1877): Manifest Destiny, the sectional crisis, the Civil War and Reconstruction
• Period 6 (1865–1898): industrialization, immigration and city growth, labor conflict, the West and Populism
• Period 7 (1890–1945): imperialism, the Progressive Era, World War I, the 1920s, the Great Depression and World War II
• Period 8 (1945–1980): the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the Great Society and social change
• Period 9 (1980–present): the rise of conservatism, the end of the Cold War, globalization and new challenges at home and abroad

How to use these questions

Work through the questions without notes, the way you would on test day. Before you answer, look at who wrote each source, when, and why. That context often points you to the right choice. Keep track of the ones you miss, and note which period each one comes from.

Don’t just check whether you got the right letter. Read every explanation, even for questions you answered correctly. APUSH questions test whether you can connect a source to its causes, effects and larger historical context, not just whether you remember a date.

Practice questions

Question 1

In the early 1500s, the Spanish Crown granted many colonists in the Caribbean and Mexico an encomienda: the right to demand labor and tribute from the Native people of a given area. In return, the colonist was expected to protect those people and teach them Christianity. In practice, many Native workers were forced into mines and fields under brutal conditions, and critics such as the friar Bartolomé de Las Casas urged the Crown to stop the abuses.
Summary written for this page

The system described in the summary most directly reflects which Spanish colonial goal?

A. Building a large population of small, independent family farms
B. Forming equal trade partnerships with Native nations
C. Gaining wealth from Native labor while spreading Catholic Christianity
D. Limiting the power of the Spanish Crown in the Americas

Show answer

Answer: C. The encomienda gave colonists Native labor and tribute in exchange for a duty to Christianize, so it served both economic and religious goals. It was a grant from the Crown that strengthened Spanish control, and it was built on forced labor, not equal partnership.

Question 2

“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us…”
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 1630, spelling modernized

Winthrop’s words most directly express the Puritan belief that

A. their colony should be a model Christian community for others to follow.
B. colonists should seek wealth mainly through growing tobacco.
C. church and government must be kept completely separate.
D. all religious faiths deserve equal toleration.

Show answer

Answer: A. Winthrop told the Massachusetts Bay colonists that the world would be watching them, so they had to build a godly community worth imitating. Separating church and state and tolerating all faiths were ideas associated with critics like Roger Williams, whom the Puritans banished.

Question 3

“Small islands not capable of protecting themselves are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Paine’s argument in the excerpt was most directly intended to

A. persuade colonists to seek reconciliation with the king.
B. convince colonists that independence from Britain was natural and necessary.
C. defend Parliament’s right to tax the colonies.
D. build support for ratifying the Articles of Confederation.

Show answer

Answer: B. Published in early 1776, Common Sense used plain language to argue that it made no sense for a huge continent to be ruled by a small, distant island. It helped turn colonial opinion away from reconciliation and toward the Declaration of Independence later that year.

Question 4

Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal ran about 360 miles across New York, linking the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Grain and other goods that once moved slowly and expensively by wagon could now travel by boat, and the cost of shipping between the Great Lakes region and New York City dropped sharply. Towns such as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse grew quickly along its route.
Summary written for this page

The development described in the summary most directly contributed to

A. the decline of New York City as a center of trade.
B. the end of westward migration from the East Coast.
C. the spread of plantation slavery into New York.
D. the Market Revolution, which tied western farmers more closely to eastern markets.

Show answer

Answer: D. Canals, roads and later railroads cut transportation costs and linked farms in the West to cities and markets in the East, a key part of the Market Revolution. The Erie Canal helped make New York City the nation’s leading port, and it encouraged, rather than ended, settlement of the Great Lakes region.

Question 5

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”
Abraham Lincoln, “House Divided” speech, 1858

Lincoln’s argument in the excerpt most directly reflects

A. growing sectional conflict over the future of slavery in the United States.
B. Lincoln’s support for immediately abolishing slavery in every state.
C. a belief that the Union would soon be peacefully dissolved.
D. Southern support for letting settlers decide the slavery question.

Show answer

Answer: A. By 1858, the fight over slavery’s expansion into the western territories was splitting the nation, and Lincoln argued the conflict could not last forever. The trap is choice B: in this period Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery but did not call for ending it immediately where it already existed.

Question 6

“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance… and after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer… in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community.”
Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth” (often called “The Gospel of Wealth”), 1889

Carnegie’s argument is most consistent with which idea?

A. The government should own and manage major industries.
B. Labor unions should control the nation’s factories.
C. Wealthy people have a duty to use their fortunes to benefit society.
D. Great fortunes should be passed down whole to the owner’s children.

Show answer

Answer: C. In “The Gospel of Wealth,” Carnegie argued that the rich should treat their surplus money as a trust to be spent for the public good, for example on libraries, schools and universities. He defended private enterprise, not government or union control of industry, and he criticized leaving huge fortunes to heirs.

Question 7

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a novel about immigrant workers in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. Sinclair hoped to win readers over to socialism by showing how workers suffered, but readers were most shocked by his descriptions of spoiled meat, rats and filth in the plants. The public outcry quickly reached President Theodore Roosevelt.
Summary written for this page

Which development most directly resulted from the public reaction described in the summary?

A. The passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act
B. The passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906
C. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act
D. The passage of the Wagner Act

Show answer

Answer: B. Outrage over The Jungle pushed Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, classic Progressive Era consumer protections. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) came earlier, and the Wagner Act was a New Deal labor law from 1935.

Question 8

“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion.”
Woodrow Wilson, address to Congress, April 2, 1917

Wilson’s words in the excerpt were used most directly to justify

A. U.S. annexation of the Philippines.
B. the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations.
C. the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s.
D. U.S. entry into World War I.

Show answer

Answer: D. Wilson spoke these words when he asked Congress to declare war on Germany in April 1917, framing the war as a fight for democracy rather than for territory. Wilson strongly supported the League of Nations, so its rejection by the Senate went against his goals.

Question 9

In March 1947, President Harry Truman asked Congress for $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey. He argued that the United States must help free peoples resist attempts to control them by armed minorities or by outside pressure. Most Americans understood the request as a pledge to stop the spread of communism, and Congress approved the aid.
Summary written for this page

The policy described in the summary is most closely associated with

A. containment.
B. isolationism.
C. détente.
D. the Good Neighbor policy.

Show answer

Answer: A. The Truman Doctrine committed the United States to stopping the spread of communism, the policy known as containment, which shaped U.S. foreign policy throughout the Cold War. Détente was the later easing of tensions in the 1970s, and isolationism is the opposite of the active role described.

Question 10

After taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan won large cuts in income tax rates, worked to reduce federal regulation of business and called for shrinking many domestic programs, while sharply increasing defense spending. He argued that letting people and businesses keep more of their money would spur investment and economic growth.
Summary written for this page

The economic approach described in the summary is best known as

A. Keynesian economics.
B. supply-side economics.
C. New Deal liberalism.
D. mercantilism.

Show answer

Answer: B. Supply-side economics holds that lower taxes and lighter regulation encourage investment and growth that will benefit everyone. The trap is Keynesian economics, which relies on government spending to boost demand during downturns, the approach behind the New Deal.

More practice from the AP+ workbook

These next 10 questions come straight from our AP+ Review Workbook, with the same explanations you’ll find in its answer key.

Question 11

Within a century of 1492, Native populations in many regions of the Americas fell by well over half. Smallpox, measles, and influenza moved along trade routes, sometimes ahead of the Europeans themselves. At the same time, maize and potatoes spread across Europe, Africa, and Asia, and horses and cattle multiplied on American grasslands.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

The demographic collapse described was caused primarily by

A. famine caused by European crops.
B. epidemic diseases to which Native peoples had no immunity.
C. Native migration to Europe.
D. the decline of maize farming.

Show answer

Answer: B. Native peoples had no prior exposure to Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and measles, so they had no immunity. Epidemics spread along trade routes, sometimes even before Europeans arrived, and killed far more people than warfare did.

Question 12

“…all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother…”
Virginia General Assembly, 1662, spelling modernized

The law most directly reflects the

A. legal hardening of slavery into a hereditary status.
B. decline of slavery in Virginia.
C. influence of the Great Awakening.
D. rise of indentured servitude.

Show answer

Answer: A. By making a child’s status follow the mother, the law made slavery hereditary. Children of enslaved women were born enslaved, which helped turn slavery into a permanent racial caste in the colonies.

Question 13

“…in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.”
Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, March 1776

Abigail Adams’s request most directly reflects

A. the influence of the Second Great Awakening.
B. support for the Stamp Act.
C. the use of Revolutionary ideals to question other forms of authority.
D. Federalist arguments for a strong executive.

Show answer

Answer: C. Adams takes the Revolution’s criticism of unlimited power, which colonists aimed at the king, and applies it to the power of husbands in the household. Revolutionary ideals about liberty encouraged some Americans to question other kinds of authority too.

Question 14

“…the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers…”
President James Monroe, annual message to Congress, 1823

The policy stated in the excerpt was most directly a response to

A. the Louisiana Purchase.
B. the Nullification Crisis.
C. the Mexican-American War.
D. independence movements in Latin America.

Show answer

Answer: D. Spain’s American colonies had recently won their independence, and Americans feared European powers would try to retake them. The Monroe Doctrine warned Europe against new colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

Question 15

In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois sponsored a bill to organize the Kansas and Nebraska territories, partly to encourage a transcontinental railroad through the central states. To win Southern votes, the bill let settlers decide on slavery themselves, repealing the 1820 ban on slavery north of 36°30′.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

The principle in the bill that let settlers decide on slavery was called

A. nullification.
B. popular sovereignty.
C. free soil.
D. states’ rights.

Show answer

Answer: B. Letting the settlers of a territory vote on whether to allow slavery was called popular sovereignty. The Kansas-Nebraska Act applied it to territories north of the old Missouri Compromise line, which reopened the slavery question there.

Question 16

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” 1883, later placed on the Statue of Liberty

The poem’s vision of immigration contrasted most sharply with

A. the Homestead Act.
B. the work of settlement houses.
C. the Chinese Exclusion Act.
D. the growth of political machines.

Show answer

Answer: C. Lazarus describes America as a welcoming refuge for the world’s poor. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, passed just a year earlier, did the opposite by barring Chinese laborers from entering the country.

Question 17

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan told the Democratic convention that the nation must not “crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” He won the nominations of both the Democrats and the Populists, campaigning across the country for free silver. McKinley, backed by business donors, campaigned from his front porch and won.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

Bryan’s speech expressed the grievances of

A. eastern bankers.
B. urban factory owners.
C. new immigrants.
D. indebted farmers.

Show answer

Answer: D. Indebted farmers wanted inflation through the free coinage of silver, which would raise crop prices and make their debts easier to repay. Eastern bankers and business interests generally supported the gold standard and backed McKinley.

Question 18

In 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered raids that arrested thousands of suspected radicals, many of them immigrants, often without warrants; hundreds were deported. A wave of strikes and a series of bombings that year had heightened fears of revolution after the Bolshevik takeover in Russia.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

The events described are part of the

A. Second Great Awakening.
B. Gilded Age.
C. McCarthy era.
D. First Red Scare.

Show answer

Answer: D. The Palmer Raids were the center of the First Red Scare after World War I. The McCarthy era is a trap: it was the Second Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.

Question 19

In 1973, Arab oil producers in OPEC cut exports to the United States in response to U.S. support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Gasoline prices soared, drivers waited in long lines, and inflation rose. Congress set a national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit to save fuel.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

The events described contributed most directly to

A. the postwar economic boom.
B. stagflation in the 1970s.
C. the end of the Cold War.
D. the passage of the GI Bill.

Show answer

Answer: B. Oil price shocks drove the stagflation of the 1970s, a painful mix of slow growth, high unemployment and high inflation. It undercut public faith in the government’s ability to manage the economy.

Question 20

In November 1989, crowds in East Berlin crossed through and began tearing down the wall that had divided the city since 1961. Within two years, communist governments in Eastern Europe had fallen, Germany had reunified, and the Soviet Union had dissolved into fifteen independent states.
Summary from the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook

The events described were made possible in part by

A. the Marshall Plan.
B. Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms and refusal to use force in Eastern Europe.
C. the Cuban Missile Crisis.
D. the Korean War.

Show answer

Answer: B. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms at home and declined to use force to keep Eastern European communist governments in power. Without Soviet troops to prop them up, those regimes fell quickly in 1989.

How did you do?

If you got 17 or more right, you have a strong foundation. Focus your review on the explanations for any you missed. If you got 12 to 16 right, you’re on track, but a few units need more practice. If you got 11 or fewer right, start with the unit reviews before doing more practice questions.

Our AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook covers every period with clear summaries, primary source practice, step-by-step SAQ, DBQ and LEQ workshops and a full-length practice exam with answers and explanations. It’s available as an instant PDF download or a paperback.

See the AP+ U.S. History Review Workbook →

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