PRACTICE TEST 3

AP UNITED STATES HISTORY EXAMINATION

Section I
Part A: Multiple-Choice Questions
Time—55 minutes
Number of Questions—55

Directions: Each of the questions or incomplete statements below is followed by either four
suggested answers or completions. Select the one that is best in each case and then fill in the
appropriate letter in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
Questions 1–4 are based on the following quotation.
“The U.S. escalation, therefore, was aimed…at propping up the U.S. created Saigon regimes [in Vietnam],
which seemed incapable of defending themselves in the civil war. In March [1965] the escalation took a
drastic turn. Johnson sent in Marine battalions. He thus started a buildup of American troops who were to
participate directly in the combat rather than merely be ‘advisers’ to South Vietnamese soldiers… In a speech
in April 1965, he had announced that he would enter ‘unconditional discussion’ with North Vietnam but that
the communists would have to begin the discussions by accepting the fact of an independent South Vietnam.”

Walter LaFeber, Richard Polenberg, Nancy Woloch,

The American Century: A History of the United States since the 1890s, 2013

1. Which of the following circumstances (C) The United States’s economic

led most directly to the situation security depends on cultivating
described in the passage? relationships with Southeast Asian
(A) The growth of mutual defense nations.
organizations (D) It is America’s mission to spread and
(B) Tension between the United States preserve democratically elected
and the Soviet Union over the governments.
USSR’s expansion
(C) Regional instability related to 3. Opponents to U.S. policies in South
nationalist decolonization Vietnam
movements (A) tended to avoid public confrontation,
(D) Fears about the United States’s preferring to air their grievances via
domestic security their voting patterns.
(B) engaged in passionate, sometimes
2. Which of the following arguments violent protests that built upon
would have been used to justify the growing distrust in the government’s
actions described in the passage? intentions.
(A) The United States has an obligation (C) were generally subdued quickly by
to aid those nations enduring dire the nation’s strong anti-Communist
poverty. movement.
(B) South Vietnam is vulnerable to (D) brought to an end the era of vast
Communist infiltration and needs public protests through their
American support. extraordinary violence.

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2N❖NPractice Test 3

4. America’s methods of intervention in (C) the effectiveness of the government

South Vietnam led to national debates in blending the needs of minorities
over with the demands of the majority.
(A) the nation’s commitment to (D) executive power in conducting
containment policies. foreign and military policy.
(B) limitations to police power in light of
the First Amendment.

Questions 5–9 are based on the following image.

1875

Granger Collection

5. Which of the following best explains the

historical context that motivated the 6. The development of farmers’
creation of this poster? organizations and related campaigns like
(A) The reluctance of many to leave this poster reflect
industrial pursuits for farming in the (A) the strength of the Republican
West party’s influence in the American
(B) The growth in prestige and national West.
influence of industries and trades, to (B) the expansion of labor unions to
the detriment of farm interests non-industrial trades like wheat
(C) The economic crises that gripped the farmers.
nation and severely restricted the (C) the activism of the national
amount of available credit government in addressing the needs
(D) The slow adoption of mechanized of the nation’s suppliers.
farm implements that many feared (D) the attempted adaptation of farmers
would destroy the natural ecosystem to changing economic power
of the Great Plains structures.
 Practice Test 3N❖N3

7. Which of the following groups were (C) The Populist Party

seen by farmers as having a directly (D) The Whig Party
antagonistic relationship with Western
agriculturalists? 9. Which of the following was eventually
(A) Railroad companies and large seen as the most desirable course of
corporations governmental action by those who had
(B) The U.S. Army created posters such as this one?
(C) Merchants who profited from (A) A laissez-faire approach to corporate
exports growth
(D) The national parties (B) Active regulation of the nation’s
economic system
8. Which of the following parties found its (C) Political reform to root out
strength among those who supported corruption present within the
posters such as this one? national legislature
(A) The Southern Democratic Party (D) Amending the Constitution to
(B) The Progressive Party prevent the urban population from
overpowering the agrarian West

Questions 10–12 refer to the following quotation.

“Spain had a grand imperial plan that it pursued with notable consistency: …convert the native peoples to
Catholicism, follow military conquest with military rule, and eventually defer to colonial elites for the orderly
administration of its possessions. Britain had no comparably systematic plan. It showed relatively little
interest in converting the Indians, tolerated all kinds of immigrants to its colonies, [and] long left them alone
to cultivate institutions of self-government and representative democracy… The two empires left
consequential and contrasting legacies of political stability in the United States and chronic political turmoil in
Latin America.”
David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, “Europeanizing America or
Americanizing Europe?” The American Pageant (2013)

10. Which of the following best supports the (C) The divergence in interaction with
authors’ claims in the above passage? groups of other races
(A) The development of large-scale (D) The opposing approaches to colonial
export economies in British North defense
America
(B) The growth of the Atlantic slave 12. Which of the following supports the
trade, especially in the Spanish authors’ assertions about the legacy of
Caribbean colonies British rule in North America?
(C) The expansive network of trade (A) The gradual decline in the authority
alliances that developed between of the British monarchy in North
Spanish colonists and Native American affairs
Americans (B) The expansion of self-rule based on
(D) The growth of an autonomous, English legal and political traditions
American society within British (C) The comparatively lesser impact of
colonial holdingso British settlement on neighboring
11. Which of the following characteristics of Native American tribes
settlement also contributed to the (D) The rapid geographic expansion of
contrasting legacies of the British and British settlers across the Eastern
Spanish empires in the New World? half of North America
(A) The varying interest in colonial
profitability
(B) The differing views on the use of
forced African labor

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4N❖NPractice Test 3

Questions 13 and 14 are based on the following image.

13. Which of the following developments 14. The ultimate aim of official U.S. Indian
most directly led to the situation seen in policy during the time of the photograph
the photograph above? above was to
(A) Federal policies encouraging (A) exterminate all native populations on
American westward migration the Great Plains.
(B) The growing political influence of (B) preserve the tribal autonomy of
railroads native groups in order to maintain
(C) Native American refusal to abide by stability.
the terms of treaties made by their (C) develop relationships what would
chiefs allow the U.S. government to profit
(D) Hostilities between whites and from native American resources.
Mexican Americans on the Great (D) assimilate native populations to the
Plains American way of life.
 Practice Test 3N❖N5

Questions 15–17 are based on the following quotation.

“In forming the Moral Majority in 1979, [Jerry] Falwell and like-minded religious conservatives moved boldly
into the partisan wars…Falwell made it clear that the Moral Majority was a political, not a religious
organization…The Moral Majority, he exclaimed, was …‘pro-family, pro-morality, and pro-American.’…It
encouraged a surge of grass-roots religious activity that boosted socially conservative Christian ideas after
1979 and that ultimately propelled cultural issues into the center of public debate in the United States.“
James T. Patterson, Restless Giant: The United States
from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (2005)

15. Which of the following most directly (B) The repeal of many large-scale social
contributed to the rise of the insurance programs
organization identified in the passage? (C) The expansion of the public debate
(A) Backlash against the social and on abortion
political changes of the 1960s and (D) The success of conservatives’
1970s economic agenda
(B) The growth of higher education in
the United States 17. The overall impact of organizations like
(C) Significant immigration from Latin the one described in the passage was to
America and East Asia after 1965 (A) encourage reform to end corruption
(D) The success of the civil rights in government.
movement (B) reverse many of the social changes
that had occurred in previous
16. Which of the following developments decades.
most directly supports Patterson’s claims (C) increase Americans’ faith in their
in this passage? government.
(A) The substantial impact of U.S. (D) bolster the political power of the
Supreme Court decisions in the Republican Party.
1980s

Questions 18–20 refer to the following quotation.

“The exchange of European goods for enslaved Africans that began in the middle of the fifteenth century set
the terms of the slave trade for the next four hundred years, but the character of that trade was constantly
changing for both traders and slaves. The number of slaves grew; their nationality, sex, and age fluctuated.
New maritime technology changed the transport that carried slaves, which, in turn, affected everything from
the price of slaves to the slaves’ mortality and morbidity. And while the trade expanded enormously, reaching
deep into the African interior and to all parts of the Americas, it also created opposition among Africans,
Europeans, and the Americas, which eventually led to the slave trade’s final demise during the middle years
of the nineteenth century.”
Ira Berlin, “The Discovery of the Americas and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” (2013)

18. Which of the following best explains the (D) The development of a racial caste
reason for the growth of the trade system in the New World based on
patterns described in the passage? intermixture and intermarriage
(A) The desire to populate the
developing colonies of the New 19. Which of the following groups benefited
World despite slow European the least from the rise of the slave trade
settlement as discussed in the passage?
(B) Competition among European (A) Portuguese traders
powers for influence in West Central (B) Spanish landowners in the New
Africa World
(C) The growth of sugar and rice (C) West African tribal leaders
plantations as a source of economic (D) Native peoples of the Caribbean
viability for the colonies

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6N❖NPractice Test 3

20. Which of the following best describes (C) Frequent, successful attempts at
the response of enslaved Africans to the rebellion in order to undermine
realities of the slave trade as described profitability
in the passage? (D) Rejection of European cultural traits,
(A) Overt challenges to the power especially religion, as a measure of
structure established by slavers independence
(B) Cultural adaptations that, over time,
preserved a degree of an
autonomous identity

Questions 21–24 are based on the following map.

© Cengage Learning

21. Which of the following best explains the living there by developing economic
significance of the linkages displayed on ties with several major tribes.
this map? (C) The expansion and improvement of
(A) The growth of transportation transportation in the United States
connections contributed to a decline allowed for the development of a
in regional divisions in this time market based economy.
period. (D) The funding of national
(B) The opening of trade routes with the transportation projects solidified the
Old Northwest helped to reduce national government’s role in
conflicts with Native Americans economic affairs.
 Practice Test 3N❖N7

22. The most direct result of the (B) The expansion of American art and
development shown in this map was literature
(A) the closing of the American frontier. (C) The development of new
(B) the growth of partisan bickering in technologies like interchangeable
Congress. parts and the telegraph
(C) the increase in conflict with Britain (D) The protection of craftsmen and
and Spain. laborers by national law
(D) the solidification of a system of
regional economic specialization. 24. Which of the following regions was least
changed by the developments depicted
23. Which of the following developments in this map?
complemented the impact of the (A) Urban areas of the northeast
expansion of roads and canals (B) The Great Lakes region
throughout the United States? (C) The western frontier
(A) The growth of abolitionism as a (D) The coastal south
political movement in the North

Questions 25–28 are based on the following quotation.

“We claim exactly the same rights, privileges, and immunities as are enjoyed by white men—we ask nothing
more and will be content with nothing less…The law no longer knows white nor black, but simply men, and
consequently we are entitled to ride in public conveyances, hold office, sit on juries, and do everything else
which we have in the past been prevented from doing solely on the ground of color.”
Report of the Colored Convention in Alabama (1865)

25. The demands of the passage above were (B) Considering the significant obstacles
most clearly granted by the of poverty faced by freedmen,
(A) Supreme Court’s support of civil Reconstruction efforts were wildly
rights activism. successful in establishing political
(B) passage of the Thirteenth, and economic (if not social) equality.
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth (C) The deeply felt impact of the Union
Amendments. victory in the Civil War inspired
(C) federal government’s protections of significant social change in the
freedmen’s economic self- South, paving the way for progress
sufficiency. toward equality.
(D) realignment of the political parties of (D) Although early Republican efforts
the nineteenth century. yielded short-term victories for
freedmen, the failure to substantially
26. Which of the following groups would change the social and economic
most strongly have supported the conditions of the South doomed
position described in this passage? long-term progress for a century.
(A) The Democratic Party
(B) Northern immigrants 28. The calls for equality in the passage
(C) Radical Republicans above most directly built upon
(D) Female reformers (A) the widespread influence of
republicanism.
27. Which of the following best describes (B) the public support of ideas of
the results of Reconstruction efforts American racial and cultural
toward the goals expressed in the superiority.
passage? (C) the influence of Second Great
(A) Despite considerable support in the Awakening ideals about morality
North, little change was made to the and social justice.
South as former Confederates nearly (D) the nation’s constitutional legacy of
immediately took up their old seats protection for the voices of minority
in government. groups.

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8N❖NPractice Test 3

Questions 29–32 are based on the following quotation.

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women…In the fifteen years
after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment [had become] the cherished and self-perpetuating
core of contemporary American culture. Millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty
pictures of the American suburban housewife…They had no thought for the unfeminine problems of the
world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major decisions."
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

29. The movement for social equality that 31. Which of the following most strongly
would follow the publication of this book contradicts the ideas expressed in the
was focused primarily upon passage?
(A) redressing past wrongs against (A) Women had long advocated for
American women. social programs to better the lives of
(B) questioning social assumptions their families.
about gender. (B) The media of the 1950s and 1960s
(C) establishing protections for women’s combined political campaigns with
constitutional right to suffrage. targeted ads for housewives.
(D) using the strength of organized labor (C) Young women actively participated
to effect change. in the civil rights and anti-war
movements.
30. Which of the following historical (D) The baby boom had vaulted
developments contributed to the rise of women’s domestic role into the
the women’s liberation movement? national spotlight.
(A) Women’s experiences in fighting the
Vietnam War 32. Which of the following changes did the
(B) The success of policy initiatives to most to bring about the reforms that
secure women’s rights Friedan and other feminist activists
(C) The growth of American hoped to effect?
conservatism (A) Supreme Court activism
(D) The expansion (and subsequent (B) Expansion of the middle class
contraction) of opportunities (C) The rise of the Republican Party
available in the 1940s (D) Federal aid for education

Questions 33–35 refer to the following quotation.

“We must allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community
as members of the same body, ...the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people
and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, ...New England...shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the
eies of all people are uppon us... Therefore lett us choose life, that wee, and our Seede, may live; by obeyeing
his voyce, and cleaveing to him, for hee is our life, and our prosperity.”
John Winthrop, “City on a Hill” (1630)

33. Which of the following best explains the

purpose of the colony founded by 34. Which of the following resulted from the
Winthrop and other leaders in New establishment of the New England
England? colonies by Winthrop and other like-
(A) To establish a permanent community minded leaders?
of believers sharing a common faith (A) The development of a thriving,
(B) To missionize the Native Americans homogenous society
they encountered (B) An intense focus on cultivating cash
(C) To create an experiment in crops for export
democracy based in Christian values (C) The immediate rejection of all forms
(D) To open relations with settlers from of forced labor
other European nations (D) A welcoming and tolerant approach
to newcomers and dissenters
 Practice Test 3N❖N9

35. Beyond the rhetoric of Winthrop, which (B) Early diversity among colonial
of the following contributed most leaders and craftsmen
significantly to the success of the New (C) Strong political and economic
England colonies? support of the British monarchy
(A) Long-term cooperation and mutual (D) Favorable environmental conditions
respect for native peoples of the and significant natural resources
region

Questions 36 and 37 are based on the following quotation.

“And be it further enacted. That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of
Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the
limits of the state, contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever
prohibited.”
Missouri Compromise (1820)

36. What issue lay at the heart of the debate 37. Which of the following ultimately led to
that was ultimately resolved by this the breakdown of the Missouri
agreement? Compromise?
(A) The balance of free and slave states (A) The continued expansion of the
in the Senate United States into new territories
(B) The constitutionality of slavery (B) The growth of the Democratic
(C) The profitability of expanding majority in Congress
slavery west of the Mississippi river (C) The population growth of northern
(D) The preservation of states’ rights to states
economic self-regulation (D) The failure of plantation agriculture
in the Southwest

Questions 38–40 refer to the following quotation.

“This is an indictment under the Espionage Act of … May 16, 1918, c. 75, § 1, 40 Stat. 553. It has been cut
down to two counts, …The former of these alleges that on or about June 16, 1918, at Canton, Ohio, the
defendant caused and incited and attempted to cause and incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and
refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States and with intent so to do delivered, to an
assembly of people, a public speech, set forth.… There was a demurrer to the indictment on the ground that
the statute is unconstitutional as interfering with free speech, contrary to the First Amendment, …This was
overruled.”
Eugene V. Debs v. United States (1919)

38. Which of the following contributed to (B) Whether the military deserves
the passage of the Espionage Act special legal protection in civilian
referred to in the passage above? courts
(A) A surge in immigration (C) Whether Socialism constituted a
(B) Federal activism and the resultant significant threat to the United States
conservative backlash (D) Whether American isolationism was
(C) Corruption within the highest levels a sound foreign policy
of the military
(D) Wartime patriotism and nativism 40. The conflict that resulted in this
Supreme Court case most directly led to
39. Which of the following tensions is post-war fears of
apparent in this excerpt? (A) the power of large corporations.
(A) Whether wartime legitimizes stricter (B) a too-powerful Federal government.
restrictions on civil liberties (C) radicalism, especially Socialism.
(D) social unrest based on the growing
wealth gap.

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10N❖NPractice Test 3

Questions 41–46 are based on the following quotations.

“Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right,
which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled … The
taxes for paying [any expenses of the nation] …shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the
legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled.”
Articles of Confederation (1781)
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers… This Constitution, and the Laws of the United
States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in
every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.”
United States Constitution (1787)
41. Which of the following best explains the 44. Opponents of the content of the United
change that occurred within the United States Constitution sought to restore
States between the creation of these two some of the protections afforded by the
documents? Articles of Confederation via
(A) A general growth in the fear of (A) the institution of a bill of rights.
centralized power made worse by (B) the dissolution of state governments.
the encroachment of the Spanish (C) their refusal to ratify the Constitution
(B) Widespread calls for a national as presented.
executive in hopes of uniting diverse (D) the election of many of the nation’s
groups of Americans original founders to new national
(C) Deep divisions between the content offices.
of the various state constitutions and
the authors of the Articles of 45. Which of the following resulted most
Confederation directly from the replacement of the
(D) Internal disunity that impeded the Articles of Confederation with the
ability of the government to take Constitution?
action in economic or foreign affairs (A) A gradual decline in the nation’s
42. The authors of the Articles of finances, until amendments to the
Confederation were more likely than the Constitution could be made
Framers of the U.S. Constitution to (B) Steady growth in partisan debates
oppose about the proper nature of
(A) the establishment of treaties with government
Native American tribes. (C) Improved relationships with the
(B) the strengthening of trade relations European powers present in North
with foreign allies. America
(C) the growth of the power of the (D) Restoration of the Revolutionary
national government. ideals of human rights and equality
(D) the expansion of voting rights to
members of the non-propertied 46. The contrasting ideals revealed in these
classes. two documents is most clearly reflected
by the debate that emerged over
43. Central to the contrast between these (A) the restriction of immigration during
two passages is the debate over the the Gilded Age.
appropriate balance between (B) the involvement of the United States
(A) central authority and more local in foreign affairs of the twentieth
governments. century.
(B) minority protections and majority (C) the regulation of slavery in the
rule. territories.
(C) liberty and security. (D) the removal of Native Americans to
(D) popular democracy and territories in the West.
administrative stability.
 Practice Test 3N❖N11

Questions 47–50 are based on the following quotation.

“When Daniel Webster declared, after the passage of the Compromise of 1850, that the Union stood firm, the
great orator was engaging in exhortation rather than description. The California compromise, far from
soothing sectional passions, inflamed them. Many northerners were incensed by the opening of Utah and
New Mexico to slavery, and were even more outraged by the Fugitive Slave Act… In pounding on the
Union’s door in 1850, California awakened the dogs of division and set them howling all at once. From the
Compromise of 1850 ran a straight, if tortured, path to southern secession and Civil War.”
H.W. Brands, The Age of Gold (2002)

47. Which of the following developments 49. On what basis had the Compromise of
most strongly supports Brands’s 1850 hoped to restore national unity?
argument? (A) By reinforcing the notion of Federal
(A) The creation of the doctrine of protections of the institution of
nullification slavery
(B) The growth in support among (B) By maintaining the balance of free
Northerners for protective tariffs and slave states
(C) The weakening of national parties (C) By protecting the foundations of the
even as new, regional parties rose to Missouri Compromise
take their place (D) By accepting the influence of
(D) The expansion of nativism, abolitionist cries from the North
particularly as Americans
encountered new groups in the 50. Which of the following had most
Southwest strongly contributed to the sectionalism
that Brands argues was made worse by
48. The inflammation of “sectional passions” the Compromise of 1850?
referenced in the passage had been (A) The economic and social changes in
sparked by which of the following? the North, while the South solidified
(A) The failure of the Missouri its plantation traditions
Compromise (B) The vast number of abolitionist
(B) The expansion of the Southern voters in the North, swelled by
export economy immigration
(C) The increasing influence of (C) The failure of the government to
abolitionists in the North build support for Western expansion
(D) The national debate over federal throughout the Northeast
infrastructure projects (D) The refusal of the Supreme Court to
rule definitively on the question of
slavery and abolition

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12N❖NPractice Test 3

Questions 51–55 are based on the following quotation.

“Even the most affluent and knowledgeable mothers often felt inadequate in confronting the difficulties of
modern urban life and powerless to influence the distant, faceless ‘interests’ that had become so powerful…
When we view reform through women’s eyes, redefining the relationship between the home and the
community—the private sphere and the public—emerges as central to progressivism…Many of women’s
reform efforts were directed at exploring and documenting the connections between the private world of the
household and the political and economic institutions of the larger society.”
Noralee Frankel and Nancy Schrom Dye, Gender, Class, Race,
and Reform in the Progressive Era (1991)

51. Which of the following reform efforts (B) increases in the rate of immigration
most directly support the authors’ to the United States.
conclusion in this passage? (C) the declining influence of Christian
(A) Attacks on the corrupt linkages social teachings.
between trusts and national (D) over-active governmental policies.
legislators
(B) Campaigns for stronger federal 54. Which of the following best describes
control of the railroads the long-term impact of the activity
(C) Calls for regulation of meatpacking described in this passage?
and other production plants that (A) The decline in the overall well-being
processed commonly purchased of American farmers
foods and medicines (B) Economic instability, particularly
(D) Attempts to improve the conditions among large corporations
of inner city streets and waterways (C) Higher wages for most urban and
industrial workers
52. Which of the following groups was most (D) Progress toward women’s suffrage
likely to be involved in the kinds of and political recognition
reforms suggested by this passage?
(A) Industrialists 55. The ideas advanced by the reformers
(B) Recent immigrants described in the passage would serve as
(C) The middle class the foundation for
(D) Western farmers (A) the expansion of federal power.
(B) the modern conservative movement.
53. Generally speaking, the reforms of the (C) the rebirth of the Democratic Party.
progressive era can be described as (D) the passage of strict immigration
reactions to quotas.
(A) the growth of industry.

STOP
END OF SECTION I, PART A

IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED, YOU MAY CHECK YOUR WORK ON THIS
SECTION. DO NOT GO ON TO SECTION I, PART B UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.
 Practice Test 3N❖N13

AP UNITED STATES HISTORY EXAMINATION

Section I
Part B: Short-Answer Questions
Writing time—45 minutes

Directions: Read each question carefully and write your responses in the corresponding boxes
on the free-response answer sheet. Use complete sentences; an outline or bulleted list alone is
not acceptable. You may plan your answers in this exam booklet, but only your responses in the
corresponding boxes on the free-response answer sheet will be scored.

1. Answer a, b, and c.
a) Briefly explain why ONE of the following options represents the most significant turning
point in American foreign policy.
Mexican War
Spanish-American War
World War I
b) Provide an example of an event or development to support your explanation.
c) Briefly explain why ONE of the other options is not as significant in relation to the
evolution of American foreign policy.

“I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings — on the
cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these
meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great
Society. The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely
solely on the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a
creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.”
Lyndon Johnson, Commencement Address at the University of Michigan (1964)

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by
self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one
among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?
…Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the
growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”
Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address (1981)

2. Using the excerpts above, answer a, b, and c.

a) Briefly explain ONE major difference in the ideologies of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald
Reagan.
b) Name and explain ONE impact of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency as guided by the
ideology advanced in this excerpt.
c) Name and explain ONE impact of Ronald Reagan’s presidency as guided by the ideology
advanced in this excerpt.

3. Answer a, b, and c.
a) Describe the weakness of the Articles of Confederation with respect to ONE of the
following:
Regulating the economy
Protecting the nation’s interests
Developing national policy
b) Explain the context and cause of the weakness you identified in Part a.
c) Provide at least ONE piece of evidence to support your explanation in Part b.

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14N❖NPractice Test 3

Sherman’s March to the Sea

4. Using the image above, answer a, b, and c.

a) Explain how one element in the image depicts a reason for Union victory in the Civil
War.
b) Provide ONE piece of evidence in support of the artist’s depiction.
c) Explain ONE impact of the Union’s actions you discussed in parts a and b on the
Reconstruction era.

STOP
END OF SECTION I

IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED, YOU MAY CHECK YOUR WORK ON THIS
SECTION. DO NOT GO ON TO SECTION II UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.
 Practice Test 3N❖N15

SECTION II: FREE-RESPONSE ESSAYS

Section II of the examination has two kinds of questions. Part A is the Document-Based
Question, which you must answer. Part B contains two general long-essay questions. You are to
answer one essay question from Part B. You will have a total of 95 minutes to complete the
document-based essay and the long essay.
AP UNITED STATES HISTORY EXAMINATION
Section II
Part A: Document-Based Question (DBQ)
Time—60 minutes

Directions: Question 1 is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been
edited for the purpose of this exercise. You are advised to spend 15 minutes planning and 45
minutes writing your answer.
Write your response on the lined pages that follow the questions.
In your response you should do the following:
„ State a relevant thesis that directly answers all parts of the question.
„ Support the thesis or relevant argument with evidence from all, or all but one of the
documents.
„ Incorporate analysis of all, or all but one, of the documents into your argument.
„ Focus your analysis of each document on at least one of the following: intended
audience, purpose, historical context, and/or point of view.
„ Support your argument with analysis of historical examples outside the documents.
„ Connect historical phenomena relevant to your argument to broader events or
processes.
„ Synthesize the elements above into a persuasive essay.

1. Assess the social, economic, and political impact of immigration on the United States in the
period from 1890 to 1924.

Document 1: Old and New Immigration

(by decade, 1871–1920)

Source: Old and New Immigration (by decade, 1871–1920)

GO ON TO NEXT PAGE
16N❖NPractice Test 3

Document 2: “Looking Backward” (1893)

Source: Puck “Looking Backward” (1893)

Document 3: Circular Letter of the Immigration

Restriction League (1903)
Our standard of public morality is endangered when there are annually added to our
great cities whole communities that are unfit for the responsibilities of American
citizenship, and whose members, whatever their good intentions, become helpless
victims of the corrupt boss, or of the irresponsible agitator.

Source: Circular Letter of the Immigration Restriction League (1903)

 Practice Test 3N❖N17

Document 4: “Roosevelt Bars the Hyphenated” (1915)

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to
hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best
Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad.
But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain
way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a
nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an
intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-
Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its
separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that
nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such
thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good
American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Source: “Roosevelt Bars the Hyphenated” New York Times (October 13, 1915)

Document 5: Melting Pot in PS 188 (1910)

Source: Picture Research Consultants & Archives

GO ON TO NEXT PAGE
18N❖NPractice Test 3

Document 6: Edward Hale Bierstadt, “The Immigrant

and Industry” (1922)
The position of the immigrant workman, as differentiated from that of the native born
in our industrial life, is somewhat peculiar. He stands in the middle with both ends
playing against him. He represents the mass of unskilled labor in this country, and he
represents likewise the greater portion of unorganized labor…This condition has
provided an additional twist in the industrial complex. The immigrant laborer has
come to stand for the “X,” the unknown quantity in the long-sought equation between
Capital and Labor. The employer accuses him of fomenting strikes and industrial
agitation. Labor uses him as a scapegoat when anything of an untoward nature occurs.

Source: Edward Hale Bierstadt, “The Immigrant and Industry” (1922)

Document 7: Congressman Robert H. Clancy, Speech

before Congress (1924)
 The congressional reports of about 1840 are full of abuse of English, Scotch, Welsh
immigrants as paupers, criminals, and so forth…But to-day it is the Italians, Spanish,
Poles, Jews, Greeks, Russians, Balkanians, and so forth, who are the racial
lepers…Forty or fifty thousand Italian-Americans live in my district in Detroit…They
rapidly become Americanized, build homes, and make themselves into good
citizens…One finds them by thousands digging streets, sewers, and building
foundations, and in the automobile and iron and steel fabric factories of various sorts.
They do the hard work that the native-born American dislikes. The farmers of the
United States are up in arms. They are the bone and sinew of the nation; they produce
the largest share of its wealth; but they are getting, they say, the smallest share for
themselves. The American farmer is steadily losing ground. His burdens are heavier
every year and his gains are more meager; he is beginning to fear that he may be
sinking into a servile condition. He has waited long for the redress of his grievances;
he purposes to wait no longer.

Source: Congressman Robert H. Clancy, Speech before Congress (1924)

End of documents for Question 1.

Go on to the next page.
 Practice Test 3N❖N19

Part B: Long-Essay Questions

Writing time—35 minutes

Directions: Choose ONE question from this part. You are advised to spend 35 minutes writing
your answer. In your response you should do the following.
„ State a relevant thesis that directly addresses all parts of the question.
„ Support your argument with evidence, using specific examples.
„ Apply historical thinking skills as directed by the question.
„ Synthesize the elements above into a persuasive essay.

1. Some historians have argued that the progressive era marked a turning point in United
States social and economic policy. Support, modify, or refute this contention using specific
evidence.

2. Some historians have argued that the New Deal marked a turning point in United States
social and economic policy. Support, modify, or refute this contention using specific
evidence.

END OF EXAMINATION
 20N❖NPractice Test 3

SECTION I, PART A: MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

1. (C) 12. (B) 23. (C) 34. (A) 45. (B)
2. (B) 13. (A) 24. (D) 35. (D) 46. (C)
3. (B) 14. (D) 25. (B) 36. (A) 47. (C)
4. (D) 15. (A) 26. (C) 37. (A) 48. (C)
5. (B) 16. (C) 27. (D) 38. (D) 49. (A)
6. (D) 17. (D) 28. (C) 39. (A) 50. (A)
7. (A) 18. (C) 29. (B) 40. (C) 51. (C)
8. (C) 19. (D) 30. (D) 41. (D) 52. (C)
9. (B) 20. (B) 31. (C) 42. (C) 53. (A)
10. (D) 21. (C) 32. (A) 43. (A) 54. (D)
11. (C) 22. (D) 33. (A) 44. (A) 55. (A)

SECTION I, PART B: SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE
a) America’s decision to enter World War I represents the most significant
shift in U.S. foreign policy because it marks the first time that the United
States had become involved in international affairs for reasons beyond its
own self-interest.
b) When leading the nation into war, Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the effort
to be an attempt to “make the world safe for democracy” and promised
that the United States sought no victory or spoils of the war.
c) Although the Spanish-American War saw the United States reaching
beyond its borders for the first time, the United States was essentially
continuing its long-time pursuit of Manifest Destiny. The United States
established colonies only as a means to advance national economic
interests, just as it had done throughout the conquest of the West.

QUESTION 2 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE

a) While Lyndon Johnson emphasized the necessity of national intervention
to help solve the nation’s social and economic woes, Ronald Reagan
instead insisted that the best agents for improvement were local
authorities and individuals themselves.
b) Johnson’s beliefs led him to institute many new federal programs as part
of his Great Society initiative, including increased national involvement in
public education via more funding and the creation of the Head Start pre-
school program.
c) Reagan’s beliefs motivated the conservative Congress of the 1980s to
significantly cut taxes along with social spending. Combined with a
dramatic increase in defense spending, this led to the growth of the
national debt.
 Practice Test 3N❖N21

QUESTION 3 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE

a) With respect to regulating the economy, the Articles of Confederation
struggled to raise sufficient funds to pay off the nation’s debt and could do
nothing to rationalize the complex trade arrangements being developed
by the individual states.
b) Fearing the tyranny of a strong central government, the authors of the
Articles of Confederation remembered well the frustrations of the distant
British government’s policies of taxation that in no way benefited the
colonists.
c) As a result, the national government was not given the power of taxation,
but could only request that the states contribute funds for national
initiatives, and had almost no influence over the affairs of the individual
sovereign states, who developed complicated trade initiatives that
deterred business investments.

QUESTION 4 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE

a) The depiction of Union soldiers demolishing a Southern railway helps
demonstrate how the ultimate failure of the South’s economic
infrastructure forced the Confederacy to accept defeat.
b) The South entered the war with vastly inferior industrial capacity, relying
on its booming cotton exports for wealth. As a result, the Confederacy
could little afford to repeatedly rebuild the rail lines destroyed by
advancing Union troops but, without them, could not effectively move or
supply its own soldiers.
c) Although the Union’s decision to take the Civil War to the Southern home
front proved to be successful, the utter destruction of Southern
infrastructure set the South back for a generation and helped to reinforce
its reliance upon agriculture.

SECTION II, PART A: DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION (DBQ)

SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE
Although immigrants had played a significant role in United States history
since the nation’s inception, the Southern and Eastern European immigrants
who arrived in America at the end of the nineteenth century met very
different circumstances than had those who had come earlier. Driven to the
United States by economic instability and the persecution of their own
governments, the New Immigrants found new challenges in America. Despite
filling a significant place in the American economy, the New Immigrants
mostly inspired social derision and political discrimination due to a surge of
nativism.
Economically, the New Immigrants could not have arrived at a better
time. Their vast numbers, particularly after the dawn of the twentieth century
(Doc. 1), helped to provide a source of inexpensive labor for the nation’s
growing industrial economy. Among other factors, this helped to propel
American industry to overtake international competition by enabling the
country’s factories to churn out goods at low cost. Many having fled abject
poverty and the terror of pogroms, the New Immigrants themselves were
more interested in attempting to achieve some minimum of security than in
organizing for workers’ rights. They filled any job they could take, even as
strikebreakers. As a result, the New Immigrants faced significant opposition
22N❖NPractice Test 3

from “native” American workers who resented the new workers for having
driven down wages and making unionization more difficult (Doc. 6). In so
benefiting American capitalism the New Immigrants were seen as detrimental
to the interests of American-born workers, feeding into nativist sentiments.
Though Congressman Clancy suggested that the bottom-tier jobs filled by the
largely unskilled newcomers were unwanted by “native-born” Americans
(Doc. 7), most in the United States saw this as proof of the immigrants’
inferiority rather than of their value to the nation. In spite of public displays of
cultural diversity (Doc. 5), the vast majority of Americans saw no value in
immigrants’ backgrounds and called for immediate assimilation to American
ways of life. Desperate to maintain their identities, many immigrants,
especially the New Immigrants, resisted this call.
Consequentially, American cities became hotbeds of nativist conflicts
over the supposed inferiority of these New Immigrants. Although Puck
recognized the irony in so many second- and third-generation immigrants
(the Irish and German arrivals of previous decades) so vigorously opposing
new arrivals (Doc. 2), anti-immigrant sentiments reached a fever pitch in the
early twentieth century. Besides economic concerns, beliefs that the New
Immigrants were culturally incompatible with the American traditions of
educated democracy combined with fears about radical ideas that the New
Immigrants were believed to have brought along with them from Southern
and Eastern Europe. Of particular concern was the rise of corrupt urban
bosses, like William Tweed of New York’s Tammany Hall, who built their
strength on immigrant voters who had neither the political experience nor the
economic means to avoid the machine politics of the inner cities (Doc. 3).
Nativist groups began to call for restrictions on immigration, as they had done
in previous decades when Chinese immigration was closed with the 1882
Exclusion Act. Even as the New Immigrants became established citizens and
as their numbers helped to make America an urban nation by 1920, they faced
prejudice on nearly all sides.
It was not until after World War I, however, that the national
government took significant action where immigrants were concerned.
Though men like Teddy Roosevelt had expressed concerns about the role
immigrants would play as the nation geared up to fight the Central Powers
(Doc. 4), the most significant hysteria came in the Red Scare that followed the
Great War. Associating the New Immigrants, many of whom hailed from
Eastern Europe and Russia, with the radical ideas of Bolshevism, nativism
reached new levels in the 1920s. The Congress passed a series of laws
restricting immigration, with particular focus on severely limiting the
numbers of immigrants who might come from the undesirable areas of
Southern and Eastern Europe. On the heels of the Emergency Quota Act, the
National Origins Act was passed in 1924 (despite the opposition of some like
Congressman Clancy, Doc. 7), slowing to a trickle the flow of immigrants that
had so significantly shaped the nation in the previous decades.
Having literally helped to build the nation to its dominant position, the
New Immigrants were nonetheless met with prejudice at nearly every turn.
Relegated to the lowest possible jobs and scorned by much of the public, the
New Immigrants would eventually become targets of national legislation
seeking to reduce their influence. 
 Practice Test 3N❖N23

SECTION II, PART B: LONG-ESSAY QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE
As the twentieth century dawned, the American industrial economy was
booming. Along with this incredible economic progress, however, had come a
host of new social and economic challenges that the nation was ill-equipped to
handle. Problems of poverty, corruption, and social upheaval led many
politicians and reformers to suggest that such large-scale crises would require
the intervention of the national government. Although later reform
movements would bring government activism even closer to the lives of
individuals, the success of progressivism signaled a shift in American social
and economic policy by claiming for the first time a role for the government in
protecting the well-being of its citizens.
Many of the reforms that progressives advocated had been previously
suggested by the agrarian Populist Party, but those ideas had never achieved
widespread political success until the progressives advanced the idea that the
government should rightfully intervene where Americans were suffering. For
example, the regulation of corporate power, including the trust-busting
practices of progressive president Teddy Roosevelt, had its roots in the
Populist calls for greater government control over the railroad companies on
whom farmers were so reliant. Despite the existence of the Sherman Antitrust
Act of 1890, the American government in the nineteenth century had been
unwilling to interfere with the practices of business. However, just a few years
later in the progressive era it seemed as though all Americans were at the
mercy of the actions of the industrial giants and this motivated the
government to seek change. Roosevelt and his successors, William Taft and
Woodrow Wilson, each dedicated himself in various ways to eliminating the
excesses of power that major trusts like Standard Oil Company and J.P.
Morgan’s Northern Securities.
Furthermore, progressive calls for reform extended to the welfare of
Americans in general, seeking protections for industrial workers and
consumers alike. Although Gilded Age politicians were committed to
generally laissez-faire policies, allowing businesses to grow rapidly without
government regulation or oversight, the progressive era saw a major change
in what Americans expected from their government. Led in part by the calls of
muckraking journalists like Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle about the
nation’s dangerous and unsanitary meatpacking plants, progressive
politicians sought to expand federal control to encompass safety regulations
for workplaces, foods, and medicines. In order to guard the American people
against the vastness of industrialism, laws such as the Meat Inspection Act,
the Pure Food and Drug Act, and, later, a series of regulations on workplace
safety, were passed. Although later reforms such as the New Deal would take
a much more direct role in assuring individual well-being, the progressive era
had brought about a change in American policy by insisting that the
government step in to improve the lives of its citizens rather than merely
ensure the efficiency of the national economic system as a whole.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, progressive
reformers managed to secure a host of new laws designed to protect the well-
being of American citizens. Although isolated groups had called for
government aid before then, it was the progressives’ ability to harness the
power of government based on the widespread impacts of industrialism that
enabled them to secure significant policy change.
 24N❖NPractice Test 3

QUESTION 2 SAMPLE STRONG RESPONSE

Following a decade of prosperity, America’s Great Depression shocked the
nation by its severity and defied those who promised that it would resolve
itself quickly. Building on a long-standing American history of mistrust in a
large national government, President Herbert Hoover insisted that local
efforts and volunteerism would be enough to solve the crisis. By 1932,
however, a significant opposition to Hoover’s Republican ideals had
developed in the desperation of the Depression, leading many to call for more
help. Despite the protests of conservatives, the conditions of the Great
Depression ushered in a new philosophy about the government’s role in
providing for the people, allowing for the New Deal’s creation of vast new
programs that expanded the reach of federal programs.
The devastation of the Great Depression led many to call on the
government to offer relief. While the reformers of the progressive era had
initiated policies that used the government’s regulatory power to protect the
citizens against the excesses of business, the New Dealers saw a role for
government in providing for—not just preserving—the needs of the nation’s
weak. Responding to this change in philosophy, FDR proposed a series of
public works and emergency relief programs designed to ease the financial
burdens of the depression while also addressing social crises stemming from
deep poverty. The Works Progress Administration and the Civilian
Conservation Corps, for example, used federal funds to provide jobs and
needed income to families in need. The Agricultural Adjustment
Administration sought to give tangible relief to desperate farmers who alone
could not overcome the problems of overproduction and depressed crop
prices. These programs, and dozens of others like them, not only solidified the
public’s new expectations of government but also resulted in the expansion of
the national government’s power through the new infrastructure,
conservation programs, and oversight agencies that developed within the
New Deal.
The New Deal coalition grew stronger on the heels of the dramatic
success of the first years of Roosevelt’s programs, measured by dropping
unemployment. In light of the progress made, as well as the persistent
structural problems that existed, many supporters of the Democratic New
Dealers called on the government to do even more to provide for the people’s
social and economic security. Radicals like Dr. Francis Townsend proposed
unworkable subsidies for the nation’s elderly, but the New Dealers chose
instead to harness the government’s power of influence over the masses to
develop a social insurance program that would provide needed income to
those who could not work. The Social Security Administration is perhaps the
New Deal’s most significant legacy, and millions of elderly and disabled
Americans count on the program to provide for their most basic needs. Many
Americans also saw a need for federal protections of the citizens’ economic
investments. They insisted that the government ought to work to prevent
financial catastrophes and provide for the people if they happened anyway.
From this ideology came the impetus for reform programs like the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation. By combining the government’s regulatory
capacity with an element of protection for citizens’ deposits in the event of
another collapse, this New Deal program expanded the Federal government’s
influence into the financial sector, which had previously been left nearly
entirely to its own devices.
Although later presidents’ domestic policies, like Johnson’s Great
Society, would bolster several of the remaining New Deal institutions while
 Practice Test 3N❖N25

creating many more lasting federal programs in the name of advancing the
interests of the people, these policies would have been unimaginable had not
the New Deal solidified the legitimacy of the government’s involvement in
people’s livelihood and well-being. Spurred by the Great Depression and
focused on providing for the needs of the people, the New Deal’s activism
vastly changed the nation’s expectation of its government and opened the
door for federal intervention in individuals’ daily lives.