APUSH Practice Test: Periods 1 to 9
This is a free 15-question AP U.S. History sampler, written by the StudyPDF team. It runs from the Columbian Exchange to the 1980s, and several questions start from a short primary or secondary source, the way the real multiple-choice section does. It also mixes in select all that apply and fill in the blank. Answer all 15 questions, then check your score and read the explanation for every question.
Which development most directly resulted from the Columbian Exchange in the 1500s?
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All 15 questions at a glance
Prefer to read before you play? Every question in the sampler is listed below. Answers and explanations stay collapsed until you open them.
1. Which development most directly resulted from the Columbian Exchange in the 1500s?
- A. The rapid growth of Native American populations in the Caribbean
- B. The end of European demand for New World crops
- C. The death of large numbers of Native Americans from diseases such as smallpox
- D. The spread of horses and cattle from the Americas to Europe
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. The death of large numbers of Native Americans from diseases such as smallpox
Europeans brought diseases such as smallpox and measles to which Native Americans had no immunity, and epidemics killed a large share of the population in many regions. The exchange ran in both directions, with crops like maize and potatoes going to Europe, but horses, cattle and pigs went from Europe to the Americas, not the other way around.
2. Under the mercantilist system of the 1600s and 1700s, what role did Britain expect its North American colonies to play?
- A. Trade freely with any nation that offered the best prices
- B. Supply raw materials to Britain and buy British manufactured goods
- C. Build up their own manufacturing to compete with British industry
- D. Pay no taxes in exchange for military protection
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Supply raw materials to Britain and buy British manufactured goods
Mercantilism held that a nation grows rich by exporting more than it imports, and colonies existed to serve that goal. The Navigation Acts required many colonial goods to be shipped to Britain on British or colonial ships. Loose enforcement for much of the early 1700s, often called salutary neglect, is part of why tighter enforcement after 1763 caused such resentment.
3. "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796. Washington's advice was most directly a response to which context?
- A. The rivalry between Spain and Portugal over South America
- B. American plans to annex Canada
- C. Pressure from Native American nations to sign defensive alliances
- D. Conflict between Britain and revolutionary France and its divisive effect on American politics
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Conflict between Britain and revolutionary France and its divisive effect on American politics
By 1796 the wars that followed the French Revolution had split Americans, with Jeffersonian Republicans sympathetic to France and Federalists leaning toward Britain. Washington had already issued the Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793. His farewell warning against permanent alliances and party spirit shaped American foreign policy for more than a century.
4. Which were weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation?
Select all that apply.
- A. Congress could not levy taxes and had to request money from the states.
- B. The president held too much power over Congress.
- C. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states.
- D. Amending the Articles required the agreement of all thirteen states.
- E. A national supreme court overruled state laws too often.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Congress could not levy taxes and had to request money from the states., C. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states., D. Amending the Articles required the agreement of all thirteen states.
The Articles created a deliberately weak central government with no executive and no national court system, so the two distractors describe problems it could not have had. Without the power to tax or regulate commerce, Congress could not pay its debts or settle trade disputes between states, and Shays' Rebellion in 1786 to 1787 convinced many leaders that a stronger constitution was needed.
5. "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, message to Congress, 1823. This statement most directly reflected which goal?
- A. Limiting European influence in the Western Hemisphere as Latin American nations won independence
- B. Forming a military alliance with Britain to defend Latin America
- C. Expanding American colonies in Africa and Asia
- D. Ending American trade with European nations
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Limiting European influence in the Western Hemisphere as Latin American nations won independence
Several Latin American colonies had just broken away from Spain, and the United States wanted to keep European powers from reclaiming them or founding new colonies. The United States had little power to enforce the doctrine in 1823. It became much more important later, for example with the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904.
6. Complete the sentence.
Completed in 1825, the _____ Canal linked the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and New York City, cutting shipping costs and speeding the market revolution.
Options for blank 1: Chesapeake and Ohio, Erie, Panama, Suez
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Erie
The Erie Canal made it far cheaper to ship farm goods from the Great Lakes region east and manufactured goods west, and it helped make New York City the country's leading port. Together with turnpikes, steamboats and later railroads, it tied the Northeast and the Old Northwest together economically, a link that mattered in the sectional politics of the 1850s.
7. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 increased sectional tension mainly because it
- A. banned slavery in all western territories
- B. admitted California as a free state
- C. let settlers vote on slavery in territories north of the Missouri Compromise line
- D. required Northern states to abolish their personal liberty laws
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. let settlers vote on slavery in territories north of the Missouri Compromise line
By applying popular sovereignty to Kansas and Nebraska, the act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise line, which had kept slavery out of that region since 1820. Settlers on both sides rushed into Kansas and violence followed. The anger it caused in the North helped found the Republican Party.
8. Which constitutional amendments were ratified during Reconstruction?
Select all that apply.
- A. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery
- B. The 14th Amendment, defining citizenship and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws
- C. The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote
- D. The 15th Amendment, barring denial of the vote on account of race
- E. The 16th Amendment, allowing a federal income tax
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, B. The 14th Amendment, defining citizenship and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws, D. The 15th Amendment, barring denial of the vote on account of race
The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were ratified between 1865 and 1870. The 16th and 19th came much later, in 1913 and 1920, during the Progressive Era. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests and violence to get around the 15th Amendment for decades.
9. "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development." Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893. Which statement best describes Turner's argument?
- A. Westward expansion did little to shape American society.
- B. The frontier experience shaped American democracy and individualism.
- C. Industrial cities, not the frontier, defined the American character.
- D. Native American nations played the central role in western development.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The frontier experience shaped American democracy and individualism.
Turner argued that the frontier made Americans self-reliant and democratic, and he presented his thesis just after the 1890 census suggested that the frontier was closed. This is a secondary source, an interpretation. Later historians criticized it for leaving out Native Americans, women and the role of the federal government, and that kind of comparison is exactly what source-based questions test.
10. Complete the sentence.
Passed in 1890, the _____ Act was the first federal law aimed at monopolies and trusts, although courts at first used it more often against labor unions than against big business.
Options for blank 1: Dawes, Interstate Commerce, Pendleton, Sherman Antitrust
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Sherman Antitrust
The Sherman Antitrust Act banned combinations in restraint of trade, but its vague wording left the courts to define it. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 regulated railroads, the Pendleton Act of 1883 created a merit-based civil service, and the Dawes Act of 1887 broke up tribal land into individual allotments.
11. Progressive reformers in the early 1900s most often sought to
- A. return the economy to small-scale farming
- B. end all immigration to the United States
- C. reduce the role of government in the economy
- D. use government to address problems created by industrialization and urban growth
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. use government to address problems created by industrialization and urban growth
Progressives pushed for food and drug safety laws, limits on child labor, trust busting, and political reforms such as the direct election of senators. Many were middle-class and drew on the work of muckraking journalists. The movement had blind spots, and many Progressives supported segregation or immigration restriction, which is a frequent comparison point on the exam.
12. Which of these were created during the New Deal of the 1930s?
Select all that apply.
- A. Medicare
- B. The Social Security Act
- C. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
- D. The Interstate Highway System
- E. The Wagner Act, protecting workers' right to organize unions
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The Social Security Act, C. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), E. The Wagner Act, protecting workers' right to organize unions
The FDIC was created in 1933 to stop bank runs, and the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act both passed in 1935. Medicare came in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and the Interstate Highway System was authorized in 1956 under Eisenhower. Mixing up the New Deal and the Great Society is a common multiple-choice trap.
13. "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." President Harry Truman, 1947. This statement was most directly a response to
- A. fears that communism would spread to Greece and Turkey after World War II
- B. the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
- C. the end of the Korean War
- D. the collapse of the Soviet Union
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. fears that communism would spread to Greece and Turkey after World War II
Truman asked Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey, where he feared Soviet-backed pressure, and the Truman Doctrine became the basis of containment. The Marshall Plan, NATO and later the Korean War all followed from that policy. Pearl Harbor came before it, and the other two events came long after.
14. Complete the sentence.
In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, rejecting the separate but equal doctrine of _____.
Options for blank 1: Dred Scott v. Sandford, Marbury v. Madison, Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe v. Wade
Show answer and explanation
Answer: Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 had upheld segregation as long as facilities were supposedly equal. Brown overturned that reasoning for public schools, but many Southern states resisted, which led to confrontations such as Little Rock in 1957 and kept the civil rights movement pressing for federal action.
15. "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." President Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, 1981. This statement best reflects which development?
- A. Growing support for expanding Great Society programs
- B. A demand for more federal regulation of business
- C. The rise of a conservative movement that sought to cut taxes, regulation and the size of the federal government
- D. A shift toward isolationism in foreign policy
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. The rise of a conservative movement that sought to cut taxes, regulation and the size of the federal government
Reagan won in 1980 amid inflation and high unemployment, backed by a coalition of fiscal conservatives, the religious right and voters disillusioned with liberal programs. He cut taxes and pursued deregulation, while defense spending rose and his foreign policy was anything but isolationist. Period 9 is only 4 to 6 percent of the exam, but this shift is a common reference point.
What the APUSH exam looks like in 2027
The May 2027 AP U.S. History exam is fully digital and taken in the Bluebook app. Section I starts with 55 multiple-choice questions in 55 minutes, worth 40 percent of the score, followed by 3 short-answer questions in 40 minutes, worth 20 percent. Section II is one document-based question built on 7 documents, with 1 hour recommended including a 15-minute reading period, worth 25 percent, and one long essay with 40 minutes recommended, worth 15 percent.
The College Board changed the short-answer and long-essay questions starting with the May 2027 exam. You now answer all 3 short-answer questions, each built on a source and each from a different period, and there is one required long essay instead of a choice between prompts. Course content did not change. If you are using older review books or practice exams, the multiple-choice and DBQ advice still applies, but the free-response format they describe may be out of date, so check the exam page on AP Central.
The multiple-choice questions come in sets of 3 or 4, each set built on a source: a document, a historian's interpretation, a map, a graph or an image. That is why memorizing dates is not enough. You have to read a short excerpt, place it in its period and connect it to a cause, an effect or a comparison.
The nine periods and how to use this sampler
The course is split into nine periods, and they are not weighted equally. Period 1 (1491 to 1607) is 4 to 6 percent of the exam and Period 2 (1607 to 1754) is 6 to 8 percent. Periods 3 through 8, from 1754 to 1980, are each 10 to 17 percent, and Period 9 (1980 to the present) is back at 4 to 6 percent. Put simply, the stretch from the Revolution to the end of the 1970s is most of the exam, so it deserves most of your study time.
This sampler follows that weighting, with most questions in Periods 3 to 8. Five of the 15 start from a source. For those, read the source first and ask three things before you look at the choices: when was this written, who wrote it and for whom, and what was happening at the time. The answer is usually the choice that matches the context, not the one that repeats a word from the excerpt.
Take it in one sitting, then read every explanation, including the ones you got right. A wrong answer points you at a period, not just a fact. If you miss the Monroe Doctrine and the Truman Doctrine questions, the topic to review is American foreign policy over time, which is also a common long essay theme.
How StudyPDF builds APUSH practice tests from your class notes
Fifteen questions can show you which periods are shaky. They cannot get you ready on their own, and a generic question bank rarely matches what your teacher spent three weeks on.
StudyPDF works from your material instead. Upload your textbook chapters, your teacher's slides, your review packet or photos of your notes, press New material, and StudyPDF builds practice tests from those exact pages. Every question is grounded in your material and every explanation cites where the answer comes from, so you can go straight back to the page.
You do not need to upload anything to start. Name a topic instead, for example Period 5 or the Progressive Era, and Bo sets it up with its key concepts so you can build quizzes and flashcards on it. Your results track which concepts you keep missing, so the next practice test can target them. Starting is free, and the free plan covers about four materials a week.
Written by the StudyPDF team. Last updated 2026-08-19.