AP U.S.
History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
“Various are the reports and conjectures of the causes of the present Indian war. Some impute it to an imprudent zeal in
the magistrates of Boston to christianize those heathen before they were civilized and enjoining them the strict
observation of their laws. . . . Some believe there have been vagrant and Jesuitical priests, who have made it their
business, for some years past, to go from Sachem to Sachem, to exasperate the Indians against the English and to bring
them into a confederacy, and that they were promised supplies from France and other parts to extirpate [eradicate] the
English nation out of the continent of America.”
Edward Randolph, report of King Philip’s War (Metacom’s War) in New England, 1676
1. The confederacy formed to “exasperate the Indians against the English” was motivated primarily by which of the
following?
(A) Fraudulent trade deals between the leaders of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoags
(B) Dispossession of Wampanoag land and threats to their sovereignty
(C) Forced religious conversion of Wampanoags by Puritan missionaries
(D) Intermarriage with the English, which threatened Wampanoag cultural independence
2. Which of the following best characterizes relations between the English and American Indians in New England
following Metacom’s War?
(A) Peaceful accommodation between both groups
(B) Religious freedom for the English and American Indians
(C) Dramatic decline and dispersion of the American Indian population
(D) Recognition of American Indian property and land rights
3. Compared with French and Spanish interactions with American Indians, English interaction with American
Indians more often promoted
(A) respect for political alliances
(B) cultural blending
(C) separation between the groups
(D) assimilation of Americans Indians into colonial societies
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AP U.S. History Page 1 of 26
AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
“The first we heard [while Smith was exploring the James River in May] was that 400 Indians the day before had
assaulted the fort and surprised it. . . . With all speed we palisadoed [built barricades around] our fort; . . . The day before
the ship’s departure the king of [the] Pamunkey sent [an] Indian . . . to assure us peace, our fort being then palisadoed
round, and all our men in good health and comfort, albeit . . . it did not so long continue.
“[By September] most of our chiefest men [were] either sick or discontented, the rest being in such despair as they would
rather starve and rot with idleness than be persuaded to do anything for their own relief without constraint. Our victuals
being now within eighteen days spent, and the Indian trade decreasing, I was sent to the mouth of the river to
Kegquouhtan, an Indian town, to trade for corn, and try the river for fish, but our fishing we could not effect by reason of
the stormy weather. The Indians, thinking us near famished, with careless kindness offered us little pieces of bread and
small handfuls of beans or wheat for a hatchet or a piece of copper. In like manner I entertained their kindness and in like
. . . offered them like commodities, but the children, or any that showed extraordinary kindness, I liberally contented with
free gift of such trifles as well contented them.”
4. The Virginia colonists’ interactions with American Indians, as described in the excerpt, most directly contributed
to which of the following?
(A) English colonists became primarily concerned with converting American Indians to Christianity.
(B) English relations with American Indians became mostly hostile and characterized by conflict.
(C) The English sought political alliances with American Indians in an attempt to establish equal sovereignty for
both groups.
(D) English colonists routinely intermarried with American Indians in an effort to blend the cultures of both
groups.
5. Smith’s description of the Pamunkey people’s interactions with the Virginia colonists best serves as evidence of
which of the following characteristics of American Indians along the Eastern Seaboard in the 1600s?
(A) Complex societies with permanent settlements
(B) A dependence on English trade goods
(C) Decreased populations due to epidemic disease
(D) Elaborate caste systems
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
“That a British and American legislature, for regulating the administration of the general affairs of America, be proposed
and established in America, including all the said colonies; within, and under which government, each colony shall retain
its present constitution, and powers of regulating and governing its own internal police, in all cases whatsoever.
“That the said government be administered by a President General, to be appointed by the King and a Grand Council, to
be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies, in their respective assemblies, once in every three
years.”
Joseph Galloway, “A Plan of a Proposed Union Between Great Britain and the Colonies,” proposal debated by the First
Continental Congress, 1774
6. The excerpt most strongly suggests that in 1774 which of the following was correct?
(A) The American colonists were united in their desire for independence from Great Britain.
(B) The American colonists felt the need to unite against the threat from American Indians.
(C) Some members of the First Continental Congress sought a compromise between submission to British
authority and independence.
(D) Some members of the First Continental Congress thought it would be relatively easy to unify the colonies
and win independence from Great Britain.
7. The key concern that Galloway’s plan was designed to address was the
(A) lack of American representation in the British Parliament
(B) demand for back pay for veterans of the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War)
(C) complaint about high tariffs imposed on colonial merchants for exports to Great Britain
(D) continuing security threat posed by the French in Canada
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
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“The colonizers brought along plants and animals new to the Americas, some by design and others by accident.
Determined to farm in a European manner, the colonists introduced their domesticated livestock—honeybees, pigs,
horses, mules, sheep, and cattle—and their domesticated plants, including wheat, barley, rye, oats, grasses, and
grapevines. But the colonists also inadvertently carried pathogens, weeds, and rats. . . . In sum, the remaking of the
Americas was a team effort by a set of interdependent species led and partially managed (but never fully controlled) by
European people.”
Alan Taylor, historian, American Colonies, 2001
8. The export of New World crops to the Old World transformed European society mostly by
(A) improving diets and thereby stimulating population growth
(B) encouraging enclosure of open lands and pushing workers off of farms
(C) promoting greater exploration of the interior of the American continents
(D) fostering conflicts among major powers over access to new food supplies
9. The patterns described in the excerpt most directly foreshadowed which of the following developments?
(A) The spread of maize cultivation northward from present-day Mexico into the American Southwest
(B) The population decline in Native American societies
(C) The gradual shift of European economies from feudalism to capitalism
(D) The emergence of racially mixed populations in the Americas
10. The trends described by Taylor most directly illustrate which of the following major historical developments in
the Atlantic world?
(A) The growth of mercantile empires that stretched across the Atlantic
(B) The increasing anglicization of the English colonies
(C) The phenomenon known as the Columbian Exchange
(D) The rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
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AP U.S History Exam (2025)
11. The pattern of colonial settlement up to 1700 resulted most directly from which of the following factors?
(A) The large size of British colonial populations relative to American Indian populations
(B) British recognition of Native American sovereignty
(C) The orientation of the British colonies toward producing commodities for export to Europe
(D) British government attempts to impose greater control over the colonies in the late 1600s
12. The change in settlement patterns from 1700 to 1775 had which of the following effects?
(A) A decrease in the coastal population
(B) An increase in conflicts between British settlers and American Indians
(C) A decrease in the economic importance of slavery and other forms of coerced labor
(D) An increase in trade with French Canada
13. The change in settlement patterns from 1700 to 1775 best explains the
(A) development of economic differences between the northern and southern colonies
(B) colonists’ difficulties in effectively resisting the British military during the American Revolution
(C) significant proportion of colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution
(D) growth of social tensions between backcountry settlers and coastal elites
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
“[T]he condition of the African race throughout all the States where the ancient relation between the two [races] has been
retained enjoys a degree of health and comfort which may well compare with that of the laboring population of any
country in Christendom; and, it may be added that in no other condition, or in any other age or country, has the Negro
race ever attained so high an elevation in morals, intelligence, or civilization.”
John C. Calhoun, political leader, 1844
13. Which of the following groups would have been most likely to support Calhoun’s views expressed in the excerpt?
(A) Members of nativist political parties
(B) Members of the Whig Party
(C) Southern landowners
(D) Northern industrialists
14. Which of the following most directly undermines Calhoun’s assertions?
(A) Many slaves adopted elements of Christianity.
(B) Many slaves engaged in forms of resistance to slavery.
(C) Abolitionist societies encountered difficulty organizing in Southern states.
(D) A majority of White Southerners were not slaveholders.
14. In the 1840s and 1850s, the views expressed by Calhoun most directly contributed to
(A) the United States acquisition of new territory in the West
(B) increased sectional divisions between the North and the South
(C) the development of sharecropping and tenant farming in the South
(D) the rise of voluntary organizations to promote religious reform
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
15. The graph most strongly supports which of the following arguments?
(A) The American revolution led to an overall decrease in the value of property owned by citizens in the former
colonies and the new states
(B) The American revolution resulted in increased political power for men of less wealth
(C) The governments of southern colonies and states were generally more democratic than those of northern
colonies and states
(D) Property qualifications for holding office became more closely aligned with voting qualifications after the
American revolution.
16. Which of the following factors most directly contributed to the change between the two periods shown in the
graph?
(A) A rise in secular reform inspired by the second great awakening
(B) A fear of too much popular influence in government
(C) An expansion of political democracy for White men
(D) A growing reluctance to locate political power in legislative assemblies
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
“We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain . . . that the
several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and
imposts on the importation of foreign commodities . . . are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and
violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State. . . .”
South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, 1832
17. The ideas expressed in the excerpt emerged most directly from a larger intellectual debate over the
(A) balance between individual freedom and public order
(B) expansion of slavery into the western territories
(C) priorities of United States foreign policy
(D) relationship between the federal government and the states
18. The excerpt most directly expresses and economic perspective that
(A) prioritized regional interests
(B) discouraged international trade
(C) sought to protect United States manufacturing
(D) supported the interests of organized labor unions
19. Arguments similar to those expressed in the excerpt were later employed to justify which of the following?
(A) The entry into the Mexican-American War
(B) The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
(C) The secession of most Southern states
(D) The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
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“The petition of a great number of blacks detained in a state of slavery in the bowels of a free and Christian country
humbly showeth that . . . they have in common with all other men a natural and inalienable right to that freedom which
the Great Parent of the Universe has bestowed equally on all mankind and which they have never forfeited by any
compact or agreement whatever. . . .
“[E]very principle from which America has acted in the course of their unhappy difficulties with Great Britain pleads
stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your petitioners. They therefore humbly beseech your honors to give this
petition its due weight and consideration and cause an act of the legislature to be passed whereby they may be restored to
the enjoyments of that which is the natural right of all men.”
Petition for freedom to the Massachusetts Council and the House of
Representatives for the State of Massachusetts, January 1777
19. The ideas expressed in the excerpt contributed most directly to which of the following?
(A) The extension of voting rights to African Americans in the North
(B) The end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
(C) The mass migration of African American from the South to the North
(D) The adoption of plans for gradual emancipation in the North
20. Which of the following developments from the 1800s emerged from ideas most similar to those expressed in the
excerpt?
(A) Campaigns by moral reformers to promote temperance
(B) Efforts by American Indians to achieve political sovereignty through treaties with the United States
government
(C) The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
(D) The passage of legislation by southern states intended to nullify federal laws
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AP U.S History Test Booklet
AP U.S History Exam (2025)
21. Which of the following most likely helped to prompt the petition in the excerpt?
(A) American colonists’ declaration of independence from Britain
(B) British promises of land for service in the American Revolution
(C) The passage of the Stamp Act, a tax imposed on the American colonies by the British Parliament
(D) The proliferation of religious revivals in the eighteenth century, commonly referred to as the Great
Awakening
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“Few historians would dispute that the market revolution brought substantial material benefits to most northeasterners,
urban and rural.... Those who benefited most from the market revolution—merchants and manufacturers, lawyers and
other professionals, and successful commercial farmers, along with their families—faced life situations very different
from those known to earlier generations. The decline of the household as the locus of production led directly to a
growing impersonality in the economic realm; household heads, instead of directing family enterprises or small shops,
often had to find ways to recruit and discipline a wage-labor force; in all cases, they had to stay abreast of or even
surpass their competitors.”
Sean Wilentz, historian, “Society, Politics, and the Market Revolution, 1815–1848,” published in 1997
22. Which of the following cultural and social shifts resulted most directly from the trends described in the excerpt?
(A) A sharp decline in regional differences
(B) The emergence of new ideas about the proper roles of husbands and wives
(C) A decline in the income gap between those in the wealthiest class and those in the working class
(D) An increase in the importance placed on extended family relationships
23. Which of the following pieces of historical evidence from the United States census could best be used to support
the argument in the excerpt?
(A) Data showing changes in the number of textile mills
(B) Data showing population growth in the West
(C) Data showing the growth of the slave population
(D) Data showing changes in cotton production and price
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“For a few years in the 1850s, ethnic conflict among whites rivaled sectional conflict as a major political issue. The
immediate origins of this phenomenon lay in the sharp increase of immigration after 1845. . . . The average quadrupled
in the 1830s. But even this paled in comparison with the immigration of the late 1840s. . . . During the decade
1846–1855, more than three million immigrants entered the United States—equivalent to 15 percent of the 1845
population. This was the largest proportional increase in the foreign-born population for any ten-year period in American
history. . . . Equal in significance to the increase in the foreign-born population were changes in its composition.”
James M. McPherson and James K. Hogue, historians, Ordeal By Fire: The
Civil War and Reconstruction, 2010
24. Which of the following most directly contributed to “the sharp increase of immigration after 1845” referenced in
the excerpt?
(A) The Second Great Awakening
(B) Crop failures and revolutions in Europe
(C) Removal of American Indians from the Southeast
(D) Tariff policies during Andrew Jackson’s administration
25. Which of the following could best be used as evidence to support the argument in the excerpt that “ethnic conflict
among whites rivaled sectional conflict as a major political issue” of the period?
(A) Growing concern about the political and cultural influence of Catholic immigrants
(B) Growing fear of political radicalism among southern and eastern European immigrants
(C) Increasing cultural influence of European Romanticism in the United States
(D) Increasing support for the antislavery cause among the immigrant community
25. The conflict described in the excerpt is most similar to conflict in what other period?
(A) The period from after the Seven Years’ War through the 1760s
(B) The period from after the War of 1812 through the 1820s
(C) The period from after the First World War through the 1920s
(D) Increasing support for the antislavery cause among the immigrant community
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