CLEP® practice test

Free CLEP Humanities Practice Test (2026)

This is a set of 25 original practice questions that follow the official CLEP Humanities content outline and its topic weights, each with a short explanation.

  • 25 questions
  • 8 topics from the official outline
  • No timer
Start the test

Free. Create a free account to see your score.

The practice test

25 questions

Question 1 of 25Which composer spent much of his career serving the Esterházy princes, wrote more than one hundred symphonies including the "Surprise" Symphony, and is often called the father of the symphony and the string quartet?
Question 2 of 25Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in terza rima, a chain of interlocking three-line stanzas. Which rhyme scheme shows terza rima?
Question 3 of 25In Indian classical music, the melodic framework that sets the notes, characteristic phrases and often a mood or time of day for a performer's improvisation is called a
Question 4 of 25Georges Seurat built A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte out of tiny dots of pure color that blend in the viewer's eye. This technique is called
Question 5 of 25At the end of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), Nora
Question 6 of 25An Archaic Greek marble statue of a nude standing youth, with one foot forward, arms at the sides and a slight "Archaic smile," is called a
Question 7 of 25In which Chinese novel does a clever, rebellious monkey king, Sun Wukong, protect the monk Tang Sanzang on a long pilgrimage to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures?
Question 8 of 25Which theater form, shaped in late fourteenth-century Japan by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, uses masked actors, slow stylized movement, chanting and a stage whose back wall shows a painted pine tree?
Question 9 of 25Which novel follows a doctor's wife in provincial France whose romantic daydreams lead her into affairs, crushing debt and, finally, suicide by arsenic?
Question 10 of 25In Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (1830), a recurring melody stands for the artist's beloved and returns, changed, in every movement. Berlioz called this melody
Question 11 of 25Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605 and 1615) is in large part a satire of
Question 12 of 25A piece of music in which a short theme, the subject, is stated by one voice and then imitated by other voices entering one after another, as in many works by Johann Sebastian Bach, is a
Question 13 of 25The Meditations, private notes on living with virtue and accepting what cannot be controlled, were written by a Roman emperor who followed which philosophy?
Question 14 of 25William Wordsworth's short poem "My Heart Leaps Up" (1807) includes the line "The Child is Father of the Man;" This line is best described as
Question 15 of 25Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), shot on real Rome streets with mostly nonprofessional actors, is a key work of which film movement?
Question 16 of 25In Aristophanes's comedy Lysistrata (411 BCE), the women of Greece try to end the Peloponnesian War by
Question 17 of 25Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is known for soft, smoky transitions between light and shadow, with no sharp outlines. This technique is called
Question 18 of 25The claim that "existence precedes essence," meaning people are not born with a fixed nature but define themselves through their choices, is central to
Question 19 of 25Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, with its swirling drapery, hidden source of light and stage-like setting in a Roman chapel, is a famous example of which style?
Question 20 of 25Jackson Pollock, who dripped and poured paint onto large canvases laid on the floor, is a leading figure of which movement?
Question 21 of 25Which Latin epic poem follows a Trojan hero who escapes the burning of Troy and travels to Italy, where his descendants will found Rome?
Question 22 of 25Which work of fiction opens with a traveling salesman waking up to find that he has been changed into a monstrous insect?
Question 23 of 25Which ballet, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, caused an uproar at its Paris premiere in 1913?
Question 24 of 25The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (completed in 537) sets a huge dome over a square space. Which curved, triangular sections of masonry carry the round base of the dome down to the four great piers at the corners?
Question 25 of 25The statement "I think, therefore I am" comes from which philosopher, who set out to doubt everything that could possibly be doubted?

Your answers save on this device as you go.

More free CLEP practice tests 32

Each has 25 questions written from the exam's official outline. Your answers on each test save separately.

Not sure where to start?

Ask Iris, our AI assistant, which exams your college takes and which guide fits. A person on our team answers at team@transfercredit.org.

Find my college

These are practice questions we wrote from the official outline. This is not the real exam, and a practice score doesn't predict your CLEP score. We source all of this information from College Board. Each college decides whether to award credit for a CLEP or DSST exam, so confirm with your registrar before you book an exam. CLEP® is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in making these questions and does not endorse TransferCredit.org. Terms