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Praxis World and U.S. History Online Center
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Praxis World and U.S. History Practice Center
Sit one full 120-minute form, then read the explanation under every miss. Sort the misses two ways: by period, so you know which of the four halves is weakest, and by whether the question wanted a fact or wanted you to work a source. Those two piles call for different study.
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Praxis World and U.S. History at a glance
This is the ETS content test for prospective secondary history teachers, and its shape is unusual in two ways. First, the coverage is genuinely half world and half United States, so a strong Americanist who last read world history as an undergraduate is only halfway prepared. Second, a quarter of the questions also count in a fifth category, Historical Thinking Skills, which means roughly one question in four hands you a source, a chart, or a quotation and asks what it does or does not support. Those are not separate items. They are content questions wearing a skills label.
| Test code | 5941 (World and U.S. History: Content Knowledge) |
|---|---|
| Status | Current as of September 2026, listed as available daily in the ETS 2026-2027 Praxis Test Schedule with no retirement or replacement notice. |
| Number of questions | 120 selected-response questions, each with four answer choices |
| Time limit | 120 minutes in a single session, with no separately timed sections |
| Constructed response | None. The ETS Test at a Glance lists selected-response questions only. |
| Calculator and reference aids | None documented. ETS lists no calculator, formula sheet, timeline, or map resource, so expect nothing beyond the stimulus material inside each question. |
| Format | Computer-delivered |
| Score scale | 100 to 200, in 1-point intervals. ETS states the 120 questions are equally weighted. |
| Passing score | ETS does not set one. Each state or agency sets its own qualifying score, so check the requirement where you are seeking licensure. |
| Unscored questions | ETS says the test may contain some questions that do not count toward your score, without saying how many. |
ETS publishes approximate percentages at the top level only: World History to 1450 C.E. 25 percent (about 30 questions), World History 1450 C.E. to the present 25 percent (about 30), United States History to 1877 25 percent (about 30), United States History 1877 to the present 25 percent (about 30), and Historical Thinking Skills 25 percent (about 30). Read that last figure carefully. The four content categories already account for all 120 questions, and the Historical Thinking Skills questions are those same items counted a second time along a skills dimension. There is no fifth pool of 30 extra questions. ETS publishes no percentage for the individual lettered headings inside a category, so none is given here.
The five categories, in plain language
Four periods and one skill set that runs through all of them. Here is what each asks of you.
I. World history to 1450 C.E. (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
Ten thousand years, from the first farming villages to the eve of European expansion.
- The Neolithic Revolution and what settled agriculture changed
- River valley civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley
- Aztec, Maya, and Inca, compared with the Afro-Eurasian river valleys
- Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China, and how they interacted
- The origins, beliefs, and spread of Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
- Why Han China, the Western Roman Empire, and the Gupta fell
- Interregional networks: Silk Roads, Mediterranean trade, trans-Saharan trade
II. World history: 1450 C.E. to the present (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
Exploration, revolution, industry, world war, and the century after empire.
- Motives and methods of European exploration and colonization, 1450 to 1750
- The Atlantic, trans-Saharan, and East African slave trade and its global effects
- Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment
- The Industrial Revolution and its effects on labor, trade, and the environment
- Revolutions and independence movements, 1750 to 1914
- Nationalism, imperialism, and the reactions of colonized peoples
- Totalitarian states, the two world wars, and twentieth-century genocides
- The Cold War, decolonization, the Middle East, and the collapse of Soviet communism
III. United States history to 1877 (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
Native America, colonies, founding, expansion, Civil War, Reconstruction.
- Native American societies before contact, and patterns of contact after it
- Why European powers planted colonies, and how the regions diverged
- Slavery in the colonies and the early republic, and the lives of free and enslaved Black people
- Causes, events, and results of the Revolution
- The Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
- Party politics, the Marshall Court, and Jacksonian democracy
- Territorial expansion, the market economy, and antebellum reform
- Sectionalism, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
IV. United States history: 1877 to the present (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
Industry, reform, two wars, the Cold War, and the movements that reshaped rights.
- Industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and the labor movement
- Gilded Age politics, Populism, and Progressive Era reform
- Jim Crow, American Indian policy, and woman suffrage
- United States imperialism and the First World War
- The 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal
- The Second World War abroad and at home
- Cold War containment, Vietnam, anticommunism, and the military-industrial complex
- Civil rights movements, postwar social change, and the post-Cold War role of the United States
V. Historical thinking skills (about 30 questions, 25 percent, cross-classified)
The same items as above, read a second time for what they ask you to do with evidence.
- Primary against secondary sources, and what each can show
- Reading a source for main idea, speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, and bias
- Inference and generalization from a document, chart, or map
- Recognizing a valid historical thesis
- Judging whether evidence supports or weakens an argument
- Cause and effect, continuity and change, and comparison across regions
- Placing an event in local, national, and global context
A study routine that fits a 120-minute test
One question per minute, 120 times, with no calculator and no reference material. The clock rewards candidates who recognize a term instantly and who can read a document quickly without rereading it three times.
Diagnose by halfTake Practice Test 1 cold, all 120 questions in 120 minutes. Score it four ways, one score per content category. Most candidates find one of the four halves twenty points weaker than the rest, and that half is your study plan.
Rebuild the weak period with chronology firstBefore memorizing anything else, fix the order of events in the weak category. Half of the wrong answers on this test are plausible facts placed in the wrong decade or century, and a candidate with a sound timeline can eliminate them without knowing the specific event.
Run the deck in period blocksWork the 120 cards one category at a time rather than shuffling everything. Terms cluster by period, and studying them together builds the connections the comparison questions ask about.
Practice the source questions on purposeFor each document, chart, or quotation, say in one sentence who produced it, for whom, and what claim it can support, before you look at the choices. The right answer is almost always the modest claim the source can actually carry, not the sweeping one it suggests.
Prove itTake Practice Test 2 under real conditions: full 120 minutes, no notes, no pausing. Compare the four category scores against your first form to confirm the weak half has closed.
Complete content outline map
Every topic ETS lists in the 5941 content outline, grouped by category. The fifth group is the skills dimension, which is scored across the four periods rather than as its own block of questions.
I. World history to 1450 C.E. (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
- 01Locate major historical events, and explain how climate and environment shaped human history
- 02Contrast hunting-and-gathering societies with agricultural societies, and know the Neolithic Revolution of about 8000 B.C.E. and what followed from it
- 03Explain the formation, organization, and significance of the early river valley civilizations of Afro-Eurasia, 8000 to 1000 B.C.E., including Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River Valley
- 04Explain the formation, organization, and significance of early civilizations in the Americas, 2000 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E., including Aztec, Maya, and Inca, and compare them with the Afro-Eurasian river valley civilizations
- 05Explain the formation, organization, and significance of Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China, 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.
- 06Explain how those five civilizations interacted, and compare them with one another
- 07State the main beliefs of Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
- 08Know where, how, and when each of those traditions originated and developed, and how and why the major religions spread
- 09Give the reasons empires collapsed between 200 and 600 C.E., including Han China, the Western Roman Empire, and the Gupta, and compare those reasons
- 10Identify the major factors behind new empires and political systems from 600 to 1450 C.E., and compare them
- 11Explain how the spread of Islam changed political, social, and economic systems from 600 to 1450 C.E., and how those effects differed by region
- 12Identify the major economic developments in Afro-Eurasia from 1000 to 1450 C.E. and their global reach
- 13Identify the major political developments in Afro-Eurasia from 1000 to 1450 C.E. and their global reach
- 14Identify the major cultural developments in Afro-Eurasia from 1000 to 1450 C.E. and their global reach
- 15Describe the interregional networks of 1000 to 1450 C.E., including the Silk Roads, Mediterranean sea trade, and trans-Saharan trade, and explain how they worked and what they carried
II. World history: 1450 C.E. to the present (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
- 16Explain political competition, trade, technology, and global contact as drivers of European exploration and colonization, 1450 to 1750 C.E., and compare colonial strategies
- 17Know how, where, and when major political entities such as Spain, Russia, and Manchu China developed between 1450 and 1750 C.E., and how they interacted
- 18State the main characteristics of the Atlantic, trans-Saharan, and East African slave trade, about 1400 to 1880 C.E.
- 19Explain the global economic, social, and cultural effects of those slave trades
- 20State the main characteristics of the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution, and their global significance
- 21Give the causes and major events of the Industrial Revolution, 1750 to 1914, and its effects on the environment, global trade, and labor
- 22Give the causes, events, and effects of political revolutions, unifications, and independence movements, 1750 to 1914, including the United States, Latin America, and China, and compare them
- 23Identify the causes and events of Western nationalism, imperialism, and colonization, 1840 to 1945, and the indigenous reactions to them
- 24Explain the nature, development, and actions of twentieth-century totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China, and compare them
- 25Identify the major events of the First and Second World Wars, their main causes and effects, and how the two wars differ
- 26Know the origins and main features of twentieth-century international organizations and regional economic blocs such as the United Nations, NAFTA, and the European Union
- 27Identify the major events of Asian and African decolonization and nationalist movements from the 1890s to the 1990s, including India, Algeria, and South Africa, and their causes and effects
- 28Explain political, economic, and cultural change in the twentieth-century Middle East, including the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the rise of OPEC, and its global effects
- 29Identify the major events of the Cold War, 1945 to 1989, including North Korea, Cuba, and the Congo, and its main causes and global effects
- 30Trace the changing economic, social, and political roles of women in various parts of the world since the nineteenth century
- 31Give the causes of the collapse of communism in Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union, and their global effects
- 32Identify political and human rights movements that emerged worldwide from 1945 to the present, such as environmentalism and the antiapartheid movement
- 33Identify global technological and economic change in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including new migration patterns, transnational corporations, and global popular culture
- 34Identify twentieth-century genocides, including the Holocaust, Soviet mass murders, and Rwanda, and explain their causes and effects
III. United States history to 1877 (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
- 35Locate North America in the world and know its major rivers, lakes, and land features
- 36Describe the political, economic, social, and cultural life of Native American peoples before European contact
- 37Explain how groups and individuals interacted with the environment across North American history, and compare land use and resource allocation by different groups
- 38Explain why Spain, France, the Netherlands, and other European powers founded North American colonies, and how those colonies developed
- 39Describe patterns of interaction between European powers and Native American peoples, such as the fur trade and Metacom’s War
- 40Explain how European imperial and political conflicts, including the English Revolution and the Seven Years’ War, shaped the colonies
- 41Describe the political, social, economic, and cultural relationships among Europeans, Africans, and American Indians in colonial North America
- 42Explain colonial social structures such as gender roles, family structure, and migration patterns, and economic developments such as labor systems and mercantilism, and compare the regions
- 43Explain the economic, social, and cultural effects of slavery in the British American colonies and in the United States
- 44Describe the experiences of free and enslaved people of African origin in the colonies and the United States
- 45Give the major causes, events, and results of the American Revolution
- 46Explain the successes and failures of the Articles of Confederation and the events leading to the Constitution and Bill of Rights
- 47Know the contents of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and compare the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution
- 48Trace political development from the 1790s to the Civil War, including the rise of political parties, the Marshall Court, and Jacksonian democracy
- 49Explain foreign policy questions from the 1790s to the Civil War, including the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Mexican-American War
- 50Give the causes and effects of nineteenth-century territorial expansion, including the Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny
- 51Explain how the market economy emerged and developed in the first half of the nineteenth century, and what it changed
- 52Know the innovations behind commerce and manufacturing in the early nineteenth century, such as the cotton gin and the steamboat
- 53Give the causes and effects of antebellum religious and reform movements, including the Second Great Awakening, abolition, and women’s rights
- 54Explain the growth of nineteenth-century sectionalism
- 55Give the major causes, events, and results of the Civil War
- 56Explain the political, social, and economic history of Reconstruction
IV. United States history: 1877 to the present (about 30 questions, 25 percent)
- 57Explain how and why industrialization and urbanization shaped the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the transcontinental railroads, big business, and the labor movement
- 58Explain how and why immigration shaped the country, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- 59Identify what distinguished urban from rural development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- 60Explain the global patterns and effects of United States imperialism in that period, including the Open Door policy and the Spanish-American War
- 61Describe regional developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Jim Crow laws and American Indian policies
- 62Explain the political, social, and cultural history of the Gilded Age, including political machines, social Darwinism, and Populism
- 63Explain the changes in politics, government, economy, and society that came out of Progressive Era reform, including trust-busting, settlement houses, and Prohibition
- 64Trace the development and major events of the woman suffrage movement
- 65Give the causes, major events, and effects of United States participation in the First World War, abroad and at home
- 66Explain the political, social, economic, and cultural changes of the 1920s
- 67Give the causes and effects of the Great Depression
- 68Explain the goals and programs of the New Deal and their effects on government, politics, the economy, and society
- 69Give the causes, major events, and effects of United States participation in the Second World War, abroad and at home
- 70Give the causes and effects of immigration and internal migration in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the African American Great Migration, the growth of the Sunbelt, and expanded Hispanic immigration
- 71Explain the origins, development, and effects of the Cold War abroad, including containment and the Vietnam War, and at home, including anticommunism and the military-industrial complex
- 72Give the causes, major events, and effects of the civil rights movements of African Americans and of other groups, including women, Hispanics, and American Indians
- 73Describe social change from the 1940s to the 1970s, including the baby boom, the counterculture, and the sexual revolution
- 74Identify major social policy initiatives and political movements since the Second World War, such as the Great Society and the Reagan Revolution, and compare them
- 75Explain how global political, economic, social, and technological change in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries affected domestic developments
- 76Describe the changing role of the United States in the post-Cold War world
V. Historical thinking skills (about 30 questions, 25 percent, cross-classified with I through IV)
- 77Identify historical questions that can be researched, that call for analysis and interpretation, and that can be supported with evidence
- 78Tell apart levels of historical understanding such as factual recall, chronology, and evaluation
- 79State the main characteristics of primary and secondary sources and tell them apart
- 80Evaluate a source for main idea, speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, point of view, bias, and argument
- 81Draw inferences and conclusions and make generalizations from historical sources
- 82Analyze and contextualize people’s values, motivations, perspectives, and behaviors using historical sources
- 83Identify a valid historical thesis statement
- 84Judge how evidence supports or weakens a historical argument
- 85Apply primary and secondary sources to relevant historical arguments and theses
- 86Compare historical developments across time and geography
- 87Identify and evaluate causes and effects
- 88Identify patterns of continuity and change over time
- 89Place events and processes in local, national, and global context
Before test day
Two habits decide close scores here. The first is chronology. If you can place an unfamiliar name in the right century from context, you can eliminate two choices on a question you do not know, and that is worth several points over 120 items. The second is restraint with sources. Test writers build wrong answers by overreaching from a document, so a candidate who asks what the source can prove rather than what it hints at picks up the whole Historical Thinking Skills quarter. Finally, look up the qualifying score in your own state before you schedule, because ETS does not set one.
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