Free CLEP US History I Practice Test (2026)

Question 1

In 1662 a synod of Massachusetts churches endorsed the Halfway Covenant. It allowed

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children of baptized but unconverted church members to be baptized

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Quakers and Baptists to worship freely in Massachusetts

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colonial governments to tax all residents to support the Church of England

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church members to skip the Sabbath during the harvest season

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women to serve as ministers in Puritan congregations

Question 2

In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes. Which change resulted from this problem?

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The Twelfth Amendment, which changed how electors vote

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The Seventeenth Amendment, which let voters elect senators directly

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The creation of national party conventions to nominate candidates

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The Twenty-second Amendment, which limited presidents to two terms

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The direct popular election of the president, replacing the electors

Question 3

At first, the Lowell textile mills in Massachusetts in the 1820s and 1830s drew most of their workers from

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young, unmarried women from New England farm families

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whole families who lived in mill villages, as in the Rhode Island system

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Irish immigrant men fleeing the famine

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enslaved people hired out by Southern owners

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skilled English weavers brought over under contract

Question 4

Noah Webster's spelling books and his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), which used forms such as "color" and "center," are best understood as part of

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a push for a distinct national culture after independence

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a British plan to standardize spelling across the empire

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the Puritan effort to teach children to read the Bible in Latin

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the Transcendentalist rejection of formal education

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a campaign to make Spanish an official language

Question 5

Jay's Treaty with Britain, approved by the Senate in 1795, was unpopular with many Americans mainly because it

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secured British withdrawal from Northwest forts but left impressment unaddressed

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gave Florida to Britain in return for trading rights in the West Indies

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required the United States to pay France for its help in the Revolution

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gave Spain full control of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans

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allied the United States with revolutionary France in its new war against Britain

Question 6

Henry Clay's "American System" proposed to tie the nation's regions together through

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a protective tariff, a national bank and federally funded roads and canals

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an alliance with Britain to open markets in Asia

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the sale of western lands only to large companies

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a ban on the export of raw cotton

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free trade, an end to the national bank and state control of roads and canals

Question 7

Beginning in 1846, thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left Illinois, and from 1847 they settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Their main reason for moving was to

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escape violent persecution, including the killing of their founder, Joseph Smith

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join the fur trade run by rival American and British companies in the Oregon Country

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set up trading posts for the Hudson's Bay Company along the Pacific coast

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search for gold in California after news of the strike reached Illinois

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claim free farms under the Homestead Act, which Congress had just passed

Question 8

In 1846 the United States and Britain settled their dispute over the Oregon Country by

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dividing it along the 49th parallel

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asking France to decide the boundary

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giving all of it to the United States in exchange for Texas

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letting Russia take the northern half

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giving the United States everything up to latitude 54°40′

Question 9

As secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education beginning in 1837, Horace Mann worked mainly to

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build free, tax-supported common schools with trained teachers

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found the first colleges for women

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open state hospitals for the mentally ill

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end the teaching of reading to girls

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create private religious academies for the children of wealthy families

Question 10

In 1686 the English crown combined the New England colonies into the Dominion of New England under Governor Edmund Andros, who ruled without an elected assembly and limited town meetings. What happened to the Dominion?

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It collapsed in 1689 after news of England's Glorious Revolution reached Boston.

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It was replaced in 1754 by the Albany Plan of Union.

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It collapsed after King Philip's War destroyed its army.

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It was ended by the Articles of Confederation in 1781.

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It lasted until the American Revolution as the model for royal government in the colonies.

Question 11

Which was a major achievement of the Freedmen's Bureau, created by Congress in 1865?

Accepted Answer

It helped set up schools for freedpeople.

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It gave Black men the right to vote in federal elections.

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It organized the first Black regiments in the Union army.

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It enforced the Black Codes passed by Southern states.

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It gave every freed family forty acres and a mule as permanent property.

Question 12

In November 1861 a US Navy captain stopped the British mail ship Trent and removed two Confederate diplomats bound for Europe. How was the crisis resolved?

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Lincoln's government released the diplomats, avoiding a war with Britain.

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Britain promised to stop building warships for the Confederacy.

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Britain declared war on the United States and recognized the Confederacy.

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The Confederacy paid Britain for the delay to the ship.

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The diplomats were tried and executed for treason.

Question 13

In 1846, soon after the war with Mexico began, a Pennsylvania congressman proposed that slavery be banned in any territory gained from Mexico. What happened to this proposal, the Wilmot Proviso?

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It passed the House but failed in the Senate, deepening the sectional split.

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It was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1847 as a violation of property rights.

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It was written into the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war in 1848.

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It was rejected without debate by Northern and Southern members alike.

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It became law and kept slavery out of California and New Mexico.

Question 14

In 1851 Maine passed a law banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks. Reformers who supported laws like this most often argued that

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heavy drinking caused poverty, crime and suffering for families

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alcohol taxes were the federal government's main source of revenue

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the Constitution already banned the sale of alcohol

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liquor should be regulated by the national government, not the states

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factories needed to pay workers' wages partly in whiskey

Question 15

Under the Navigation Acts passed by England beginning in the 1650s and 1660s, certain "enumerated" colonial goods such as tobacco and sugar

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could be shipped only to England or to other English colonies

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were taxed by colonial assemblies to pay for colonial defense

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could be sold anywhere in Europe as long as English ships carried them

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were freed from all duties to encourage colonial trade

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had to be sold first to the Dutch, England's chief trading partner

Question 16

Compared with settlers in the early Chesapeake colonies, settlers in seventeenth-century New England were more likely to

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arrive in families and live to know their grandchildren

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grow tobacco on scattered plantations along rivers

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arrive as single young men working as indentured servants

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depend mainly on enslaved African labor

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die young from malaria and other diseases

Question 17

Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail in 1846 for refusing to pay a poll tax. In the essay later known as "Civil Disobedience," he explained that he refused because

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he would not support a government that allowed slavery and waged war on Mexico

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he objected to using state tax money to build public schools in every town

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he believed taxes should be paid only in gold and silver coin

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he wanted Massachusetts to ban the sale and manufacture of all alcoholic drinks

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he opposed the national bank and its paper money

Question 18

In 1832 President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States. In his veto message he argued that the bank

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was unconstitutional and gave special privileges to a wealthy few

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was a state institution that Congress had no right to recharter

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should be expanded to make loans directly to western farmers

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was needed to pay for a coming war with Britain

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should be moved from Philadelphia to Washington so Congress could supervise it

Question 19

President Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, which barred American ships from sailing to foreign ports, had which economic effect?

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It hurt New England shipping but pushed some Americans to invest in manufacturing.

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It created the nation's first protective tariff to shield new factories.

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It brought record profits to Southern cotton planters who shipped their crops to Britain.

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It forced Britain to stop impressing American sailors within a year.

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It had little effect, because few Americans traded overseas.

Question 20

In 1868 the House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson, mainly for trying to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act. What was the outcome?

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The Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict him.

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The Senate convicted him, and he was removed from office.

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He resigned before the Senate could hold a trial on the House's charges.

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The House later withdrew the charges, so no trial was held.

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The Supreme Court halted the trial as unconstitutional.

Question 21

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War, Britain recognized American independence and set the new nation's western boundary at

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the Mississippi River

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the Appalachian Mountains

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the Rocky Mountains

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the Pacific Ocean

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the Ohio River

Question 22

Irish immigrants who came to the United States during and after the famine of the late 1840s were most likely to

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be Catholic and settle in northeastern cities, often in low-wage jobs

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be barred from entry by a federal exclusion law

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be Protestant farmers who bought land and settled on the Midwestern prairie

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be welcomed as new voters by the Know-Nothing Party

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settle mainly on the Pacific coast to work in gold mining

Question 23

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is significant mainly because it

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set a path to statehood for lands north of the Ohio River and banned slavery there

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divided western lands into townships of 36 square miles each to be surveyed and sold

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opened the lands north of the Ohio River to slavery under popular sovereignty

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gave the region to Virginia in exchange for its war debts

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forbade colonists to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains

Question 24

In the 1700s large numbers of Scots-Irish immigrants landed at Philadelphia. Where did most of them settle?

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On the frontier, moving west and south along the Appalachian valleys

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In Boston and the other port towns of coastal New England

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In the Dutch farming villages of the Hudson River valley

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In the Spanish mission settlements of Florida and Texas

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On the tidewater tobacco plantations of eastern Virginia

Question 25

Painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church in the middle 1800s are best known for

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dramatic, detailed landscapes celebrating American wilderness

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gritty scenes of city tenements and working people

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formal portraits of Revolutionary leaders such as George Washington

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abstract paintings built from shapes and blocks of color

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copies of Italian religious paintings for churches

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