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Free AP World History Practice Questions

Like the real exam, these AP World History questions come in sets built on a source. Ten from our practice exams, with every wrong option explained.

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Read this, then answer the questions about it.

The merchant advises those who would carry goods eastward that the road is safe for a traveler who pays the required duties, and that the peace maintained across the steppe has made the journey possible for men who would not have attempted it in his grandfather's time. He describes relay stations at intervals where horses and lodging may be had, notes that letters travel faster than any caravan, and observes that silver is accepted everywhere while local coin is not. He warns that the safety depends entirely on the continued strength of the khans.

Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean exchange, c. 1200-1450
Schematic diagram. Gold moves north from the West African goldfields to Timbuktu and on across the desert to Sijilmasa and Cairo, while salt moves south along the same route. Separately, spices and porcelain move west across the Indian Ocean from Quanzhou through Calicut toward Cairo.goldsaltcaravanspicesporcelainWangara goldfieldsTimbuktuSijilmasaCairoCalicutQuanzhou
Schematic. Positions show relative order along the routes, not geographic location.

Question 1

The conditions described in the passage are most directly attributable to
  1. A. the eastward expansion of Byzantine authority across Anatolia
  2. B. the political consolidation of the steppe under Mongol rule
  3. C. the spread of Buddhism along the routes by merchants and monks
  4. D. the establishment of fortified Portuguese trading posts around the Indian Ocean
Show the answer

The answer is B. Relay stations, safe passage across the steppe, and safety dependent on the khans all point to the Mongol peace that made long-distance overland travel practicable in this period.

  • A is wrong: Byzantium was contracting rather than expanding in the fourteenth century.
  • C is wrong: Buddhism had spread along these routes centuries earlier and does not explain the safety described.
  • D is wrong: Portuguese trading posts in Asia date from more than a century later.

Question 2

The relay stations the merchant describes served chiefly to
  1. A. carry official messages and supply mounts across long distances
  2. B. collect religious tithes from the merchants who passed along the route
  3. C. store grain reserves against famine among the steppe populations
  4. D. house soldiers permanently garrisoned along the northern frontier
Show the answer

The answer is A. The relay system existed to move imperial communication quickly, which is why the merchant notes that letters travel faster than any caravan.

  • B is wrong: The duties he mentions are commercial rather than religious.
  • C is wrong: Grain storage is not described, and the stations serve movement rather than reserve.
  • D is wrong: The stations provide horses and lodging rather than functioning as garrisons.

Question 3

The diagram adds to the merchant's account chiefly by showing that
  1. A. the overland and the maritime routes shown had no point of contact anywhere along their length
  2. B. goods moved in one direction only along each of the corridors shown
  3. C. the route he traveled was one segment of a network reaching from West Africa to East Asia
  4. D. the merchant's own journey covered the whole distance from the West African goldfields to Quanzhou
Show the answer

The answer is C. A traveler describes the stretch he covered. The diagram shows that stretch joined to others, so goods he handled could have originated far beyond anywhere he went.

  • A is wrong: Cairo is a terminus for the caravan route and for goods arriving from Calicut.
  • B is wrong: Gold moves north along the same corridor by which salt moves south.
  • D is wrong: His account describes one portion of the overland route, not the entire network.

Read this, then answer the questions about it.

The official reports that the mines of the Americas yield more silver than any treasury in Europe has handled, and that the crown's share arrives each year in the fleets. He observes with unease that the metal does not remain in Spain: it pays for grain, cloth and ships bought abroad, and a great part continues eastward to purchase silk, porcelain and spices from Asia, where silver commands a higher price than at home. He notes that prices in Spain have risen steadily and that the crown's debts have risen faster.

Question 4

The movement of silver described best illustrates
  1. A. the isolation of Asian economies from European commerce and shipping
  2. B. a decline of transoceanic shipping
  3. C. the replacement of silver by paper currency as the medium of world trade
  4. D. the emergence of a genuinely global trade network linking the Americas, Europe and Asia
Show the answer

The answer is D. American silver crossing the Atlantic, paying European debts and continuing to Asia in exchange for manufactured goods is the clearest single illustration of the first world-spanning trade system.

  • A is wrong: Asian economies are the destination of the silver, which is the opposite of isolation.
  • B is wrong: Transoceanic shipping expanded substantially in this period, carrying the very fleets the official describes.
  • C is wrong: Paper currency did not displace silver in this period.

Question 5

The higher price of silver in Asia is best explained by
  1. A. strong Asian demand for silver, particularly where taxes were payable in it
  2. B. the absence of silver mines outside the Americas
  3. C. the low quality of American silver when compared with Asian silver
  4. D. European laws that forbade the export of silver bullion overseas
Show the answer

The answer is A. Chinese fiscal reform requiring payment in silver created enormous demand, and that demand set a price that pulled the metal eastward.

  • B is wrong: Silver was mined in Japan and elsewhere, though not in the quantities the Americas produced.
  • C is wrong: Silver is silver; no quality difference drove the price.
  • D is wrong: Such laws existed but were widely evaded, and they would reduce rather than explain the flow.

Question 6

The official's observation about rising prices reflects a broader phenomenon known as
  1. A. the price revolution
  2. B. the Columbian exchange
  3. C. the commercial revolution
  4. D. the enclosure movement
Show the answer

The answer is A. The sustained inflation across sixteenth-century Europe, associated with a greatly increased money supply and population growth, is conventionally called the price revolution.

  • B is wrong: The Columbian exchange refers to the transfer of crops, animals and disease.
  • C is wrong: The commercial revolution describes changes in business organization and finance.
  • D is wrong: Enclosure concerned the reorganization of English farmland and has no bearing on a general rise in prices.

Read this, then answer the questions about it.

The manufacturer explains that the work formerly done in cottages, at hours the worker chose, is now done in one building beside a source of power, at hours set by the engine. He argues that the discipline of the clock is what makes the machinery pay, since a machine idle for an hour earns nothing while the investment in it must still be repaid. He notes that workers accustomed to the older pattern find the new one intolerable at first, and that the mill relies increasingly on those with no memory of the older pattern at all.

Share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1900
Line chart. China and India together fall from about 57 percent of world manufacturing output in 1750 to under 8 percent by 1900, while Britain rises from about 2 percent to a peak near 23 percent in 1880 before easing slightly.0204060YearPercent of world output175018001830186018801900
China and IndiaBritain
Adapted from standard comparative estimates. Percentages are of the world total.

Question 7

The change the manufacturer describes is best characterized as
  1. A. the replacement of machinery by hand labor
  2. B. the abolition of wage labor in textile production
  3. C. the shift from dispersed household production to centralized factory production
  4. D. the movement of manufacturing into the countryside
Show the answer

The answer is C. Work moving from cottages to one building beside a power source, on hours set by the engine, is the defining transition of early industrialization.

  • A is wrong: Machinery is what makes the new arrangement necessary in his account.
  • B is wrong: The workers described are wage earners, and their number grows.
  • D is wrong: Production concentrates at power sources and increasingly in towns.

Question 8

The manufacturer's argument about the clock rests on the claim that
  1. A. workers produce better goods when working fixed hours
  2. B. the law required uniform working hours
  3. C. power was available only at certain hours
  4. D. capital invested in machinery must be kept running to be repaid
Show the answer

The answer is D. He states it directly: an idle machine earns nothing while the investment still has to be repaid, so time discipline follows from the cost of the equipment.

  • A is wrong: He argues about cost recovery rather than about quality.
  • B is wrong: Hours legislation came later and restricted rather than required long hours.
  • C is wrong: Water and steam power were available continuously.

Read this, then answer the questions about it.

The officer writes that the war he was trained for and the war he is fighting have almost nothing in common. Movement is impossible for more than a few hundred yards; the line has not shifted appreciably in a year; and the weapons that decide matters are the machine gun, the wire and the artillery barrage rather than any maneuver. He observes that the effort required to move the line at all now consumes more men and more shells than whole campaigns once did, and that neither side can stop for fear of what has already been spent.

Question 9

The conditions the officer describes resulted most directly from
  1. A. the absence of artillery on the western front
  2. B. defensive technologies that had outpaced the means of attack
  3. C. a shortage of soldiers on both sides
  4. D. the refusal of commanders to order offensives
Show the answer

The answer is B. Machine guns, wire and entrenchment made defense far cheaper than attack, and until that imbalance was addressed the line could not move.

  • A is wrong: He names the artillery barrage as one of the decisive weapons.
  • C is wrong: Both sides fielded millions of men; the problem was not numbers.
  • D is wrong: Repeated large offensives were ordered throughout the war.

Question 10

The scale of resources he describes reflects the emergence of
  1. A. conflicts settled by negotiation before any major fighting had occurred
  2. B. limited warfare fought by small professional armies with little effect on civilians
  3. C. wars decided principally by naval engagements
  4. D. total war, in which whole economies were directed toward the conflict
Show the answer

The answer is D. Consuming more men and shells than whole campaigns once did is only possible where industry, finance and labor are organized for war — the definition of total war.

  • A is wrong: The war ran for years without negotiated settlement.
  • B is wrong: The armies described are mass conscript forces, not small professional ones.
  • C is wrong: The passage concerns land fighting, and the naval war did not decide it.
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