Sample/Practice Questions for AP History Exam:
1. From 1818 until the early 1840’s, the Oregon Territory was administered under which of the
following arrangements?
a. The Oregon Territory was a British protectorate
b. It was no man’s land not formally claimed by any government.
c. Russia controlled the territory as part of its Alaska claim
d. Great Britain and the United States controlled it jointly
2. The popular phrase of 1844, “Fifty-four forty or fight” served as :
a. A push for American control of the entire Oregon territory
b. The battle cry for the Mexican War
c. The charge of people involved in the gold rush
d. A political slogan for Martin Van Buren
3. The 1845 annexation of Texas provoked:
a. Polk’s electoral victory
b. The Mexican War
c. President Van Buren’s resignation
d. Rebellion in the former Lone Star Republic
4. The 1857 Dred Scott decision had which of the following consequences?
a. It deprived the Republicans of their political platform by prohibiting slavery in any new
territories
b. The decision persuaded many Republicans that the Supreme Court and President
Buchanan were part of the “slave power” conspiracy.
c. Chief Roger Taney’s influential majority opinion effectively smoothed over sectional
tension for two years.
d. The decision’s nullification of the Northwest Ordinance persuaded Stephen a Douglas to
disavow the popular sovereignty doctrine.
5. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act led to which of the following outcomes?
a. The Kansas and Nebraska territories were admitted as slave states.
b. Stephen Douglas’s political career ended
c. President Pierce signed the Ostend Manifesto
d. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was repealed.
6. Abraham Lincoln belonged to which political party during his four terms in the Illinois senate?
a. Whigs
b. Democrats
c. Free-Soil
d. Republican
7. What was the Confederacy seeking to achieve with the war in 1861?
a. Permanent independence and to be let alone
b. Reestablishment of the Union with ironclad guarantees for slavery
c. The annexation of all the border states and the Southwest as far as the Pacific
d. Expansion into the Caribbean, Central America and Northern Mexico