Course orientation
What's on this site, how it's organised, and how to get the most out of it before you dive into a chapter.
The course is nine periods
The College Board splits AP U.S. History into nine periods, weighted by how much of the exam each one covers. That's the order this site follows too — start wherever your class is.
- P1 · 4–6% New World Beginnings 1491–1607 3 chapters
- P2 · 6–8% Colonial Society Takes Shape 1607–1754 2 chapters
- P3 · 10–17% Revolution & a New Republic 1754–1800 5 chapters
- P4 · 10–17% The Young Republic Expands 1800–1848 7 chapters
- P5 · 10–17% Civil War & Reconstruction 1844–1877 5 chapters
- P6 · 13–17% The Gilded Age 1865–1898 4 chapters
- P7 · 13–17% Boom, Bust, and Global War 1890–1945 9 chapters
- P8 · 13–17% Postwar America and the Cold War 1945–1980 4 chapters
- P9 · 4–6% The Contemporary Era 1980–present 3 chapters
Segment width = that period's share of the AP exam, using the College Board's published weightings.
Every chapter, the same six pages
Open any chapter from the sidebar and the study bar at the top switches between these — no hunting for where something lives.
- Read
Chapter summary
The chapter broken into its sections, with the maps and images that go with them.
- Review
Vocabulary
The terms and definitions for the chapter, as a glossary you can read straight through.
- Sequence
Timeline
The chapter's events in order, each one opening to a fuller explanation.
- Practise
Ordering game
Drag the events into chronological order. Needs a mouse — no touchscreen support yet.
- Test
Chapter quiz
The textbook's own chapter quiz, with an instant-feedback mode and a graded classic mode.
- Test
Extra quiz
A second, longer question set on the chapters that have one — 40 of the 42 do.
A few things worth knowing
- Chapter quizzes have two modes: Instant marks each answer as you go, Classic withholds every answer until you submit — better for a real self-test.
- Chapter pages carry a print stylesheet, so "Print" from the browser gives a clean handout with no navigation chrome.
- Use the Browse Periods button (top right, on every page) to jump straight to any period or chapter.