one of the best ways to get ready for the ap us history test is by taking a practice test. an ap us history practice exam gives you a sense of what to expect on the real thing and helps you know how to focus your other study efforts. here are a few places where you can find an apush practice test.
official apush practice test
the best, most accurate apush practice tests are, of course, those that come directly from the test maker. your options here are limited, but high-quality.
college board has released one full-length apush practice test. you can download the pdf here.
while this is the only full-length test college board offers, they do have other questions available. you’ll have the best luck if you’re looking for practice with free response questions. all of the free response questions from the real apush exams have been released for 2015-2017. you can find those here by scrolling down about halfway under “exam questions and scoring information.” for all but the most recent exam, you can also find sample student responses and see how they were scored. this can be a great guide to how you’ll do on the test and show you how to improve your writing. older free response questions (2014 and earlier) are also available here. the test has been redesigned since then, so these older questions aren’t 100% true to what you’ll see on test day, but they can be another good source of practice.
for multiple choice, your options are more limited. unlike the free response questions, real multiple choice questions from past exams are not released. the full-length practice test discussed above is the only official source of multiple choice questions.
unofficial apush practice tests
there are several places where you can find ap us history practice exams and questions.
barron’s offers a great full-length apush practice test that the company claims closely mimics the real thing. one awesome feature of this test is that you can take it in a timed or untimed (“practice”) mode. the untimed practice mode is great is you’re looking to get a feel for the questions. it also provide answer explanations, so you can really take your time and use it as a study resource. timed mode is perfect for closer to test day when you want to practice under the most exam-like conditions possible.
you can also find full-length practice tests in most high-quality ap us history review books. look for books by an established, well-regarded company. also, make sure that the book is from 2015 or later to make sure it’s been updated for the redesigned exam. the newer, the better. strapped for cash? don’t forget about your good old local library. many libraries stock test prep books. check them out for free and take the practice tests on your own time. just be sure to write on your own paper, not in the book, unless you want to face an unhappy librarian.
additional apush practice questions
while not full-length practice tests, the following resources provide helpful practice questions to help you prepare for the apush exam.
gilder lehrman institute of american history
this site has a 19-question quiz aligned to the real apush exam. while short, it does have questions for each period, so it gives a new overview of the breadth of the exam. the questions have answer explanations and links to resources to learn more. the official college board ap us history website also links to the gildern lehrman apush review, so it’s a good bet that this is a high-quality resource.
beyond practice questions, gilder lehrman’s ap us history study guide is a great source of review. for each period, it has concept outlines, videos, timelines, documents, and essays.
this site has tons of practice questions. you do have to sign up for an account to take the quizzes, but it’s totally free for a basic account. one great thing about this site is that it’s totally customizable. you can get really picky with the topics you’re looking to study. for the multiple choice, the questions are organized by period, and then further broken down into quizzes for subtopics of each period. beyond that, once you click on a subtopic, you can either take the whole quiz for that subtopic, or you can click on one or more tags to further filter the questions. for example, there are 70 questions about period 1. within that, you could take a 48-question quiz on the columbian exchange. however, if you’re looking just for questions on the slave trade within the columbian exchange, you can open the quiz, click on the “slavery” tag, and get just the 4 practice questions that are specifically about that topic. the site also keeps track of your progress and gives you an accuracy percentage.
the site also has lots of free response questions of all types available, also organized by period. however, these are not available with the free account. you can purchase access to these questions by upgrading to full access to the subject for $29.99.
khan academy is a great free resource for studying for the ap us history exam. in addition to their many text and video lessons, they have multiple choice practice questions for each period. these questions do not follow the format of the actual test since they are not all accompanied by source documents; however, they do provide a great topical review.
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