AP United States History, AP exams, 10–17%

Unit 7: Period 7, 1890–1945

Period 7 spans overseas expansion, Progressive reform, two world wars, the 1920s, and the New Deal. It is the longest stretch of material in the course and the one where students most often run out of study time. Debates over the proper role of the federal government tie the whole period together.

Position: 7 of 9 units
Published weighting: 10–17% in the official framework
Topics covered: 7 topics in this guide

What is covered

Topics inside this unit.

These topics describe the scope students most often review for this part of AP United States History. Treat them as a study checklist rather than an exhaustive list of what a single exam form can sample.

Imperialism and debates over expansion: The Spanish-American War, acquisition of overseas territories, and the anti-imperialist argument against them.
The Progressive Era: Muckrakers, regulatory legislation, municipal reform, woman suffrage, and the limits of Progressivism on race.
World War I and the home front: Neutrality and entry, wartime mobilization and civil-liberties restrictions, and the fight over the League of Nations.
The 1920s: prosperity and cultural conflict: Consumer culture, the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance, immigration restriction, prohibition, and religious controversy.
The Great Depression and the New Deal: Causes of the crash, relief-recovery-reform programs, critics from left and right, and the New Deal's uneven reach.
World War II: mobilization and the home front: Industrial conversion, women and minority workers, Japanese American incarceration, and wartime civil-rights pressure.
World War II diplomacy and the atomic bomb: Wartime conferences, the decision to use atomic weapons, and the postwar order the United States helped design.

Study tips

How to practice Period 7.

Section-specific guidance that follows from how this material is usually tested.

Split this period into three study blocks so its length does not crowd out Periods 8 and 9.
Compare Progressive, New Deal, and wartime expansions of federal power in one recurring argument.
Drill Harlem Renaissance and Great Migration specifics; they anchor evidence points on culture and migration prompts.

Where this fits

Unit 7: Period 7, 1890–1945 is 7 of 9 units in the AP United States History guide, and it carries a published weighting of 10–17% in the official framework. Use the full guide to balance it against everything else you have to review.

Back to the AP United States History guide Official exam information

Sample Period 7 questions

Practice questions, not yet expert-reviewed

Original practice questions written to the published framework for this section. No expert has reviewed them, and they are not taken from any official exam. Try each one before you open the answer.

Question 1Foundational
Which constitutional amendment, ratified in 1920, barred denying the right to vote on account of sex?
1. AThe Eighteenth Amendment
2. BThe Nineteenth Amendment
3. CThe Fifteenth Amendment
4. DThe Twenty-first Amendment
Show answer
Answer: B. The Nineteenth Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment completed a campaign for woman suffrage that ran from Seneca Falls through state-level victories and the wartime picketing of the National Woman's Party. The Eighteenth Amendment is the tempting distractor because it was ratified in the same era, but it established national prohibition of alcohol.
Key insight: Suffrage was won state by state before it was won nationally, which is why western states appear first in the story.
Question 2Foundational
Which German naval policy, resumed in early 1917, attacked ships in the declared war zone without warning and pushed the United States toward entering World War I?
1. AUnrestricted submarine warfare
2. BThe invasion of Belgium
3. CZeppelin bombing of London
4. DThe blockade of the Baltic Sea
Show answer
Answer: A. Unrestricted submarine warfare
Germany gambled that submarines could starve Britain into surrender before American forces could arrive, and the resulting sinkings, together with the Zimmermann Telegram, led Wilson to ask Congress for war in April 1917. The invasion of Belgium is the tempting distractor because it shocked American opinion, but it occurred in 1914 and did not end American neutrality.
Key insight: American entry turned on attacks against neutral shipping, which is why the sea war mattered more than the land war for United States policy.
Question 3Intermediate
Which 1935 New Deal law created a federal system of old-age pensions funded by taxes on wages and payrolls?
1. AThe Wagner Act
2. BThe Social Security Act
3. CThe Tennessee Valley Authority Act
4. DThe Agricultural Adjustment Act
Show answer
Answer: B. The Social Security Act
The Social Security Act combined contributory old-age insurance with unemployment compensation and aid to dependent children, and it became the most durable New Deal program. The Wagner Act is the tempting distractor because it passed the same year, but it guaranteed collective bargaining rights rather than retirement income, and Social Security's original exclusion of farm and domestic workers left many Black and Latino workers uncovered.
Key insight: The New Deal's lasting achievement was social insurance, which changed what Americans expected the federal government to provide.
Question 4Intermediate
Executive Order 9066, issued in 1942, led to what action against roughly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast?
1. AThe revocation of their United States citizenship
2. BTheir forced removal and confinement in inland camps
3. CTheir deportation to Japan
4. DTheir conscription into segregated combat units
Show answer
Answer: B. Their forced removal and confinement in inland camps
The order authorized military commanders to designate exclusion zones, and the army removed Japanese Americans, about two thirds of whom were United States citizens, to camps in the interior for most of the war. Revocation of citizenship is the tempting distractor, but the government never stripped citizenship; instead the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion in Korematsu v. United States in 1944.
Key insight: Claims of wartime emergency have repeatedly been used to suspend the rights of a targeted minority.
Question 5Advanced
At which February 1945 conference did Stalin promise to enter the war against Japan within about three months of Germany's surrender?
1. AThe Tehran Conference
2. BThe Casablanca Conference
3. CThe Yalta Conference
4. DThe Potsdam Conference
Show answer
Answer: C. The Yalta Conference
At Yalta, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin planned the occupation of Germany, scheduled the founding conference of the United Nations, and secured a Soviet pledge to join the Pacific war in exchange for territorial concessions in Asia. Potsdam is the tempting distractor because it also settled postwar questions, but it met in July and August 1945, after Germany had already surrendered.
Key insight: Wartime conferences are best remembered by what each one decided rather than by their order alone.

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Unit 7: Period 7, 1890–1945