Free AP Art History Practice Test 2025 Official Study Guide [PDF]

Last Updated on April 21, 2025

Free AP Art History Practice Test 2025 Official Study Guide [PDF]. Try our free Advanced Placement Art History Multiple Choice and Free Response Questions Answer. You can also find the official practice test questions and Study Guide in a printable PDF format.

The AP Art History course invites students to explore the global art world, engaging with its forms and content through research, discussion, reading, and writing about art, artists, art-making, and responses to and interpretations of art.

Table of Contents

AP Art History Practice Test 2025

The Advanced Placement Examination in Art History requires the student to answer as many of the 80 multiple-choice questions as possible correctly. Each question has four possible responses, and you are asked to find the BEST answer. Try the following AP Art History Practice Tests.

AP Art History Exam Format

The Advanced Placement Examination in Art History is a 3-hour test, composed of an hour of multiple-choice questions, followed by a short break, and then 2 hours of free-response questions. The format is as follows:

Unit 1: Global Prehistory, 30,000–500 BCE ~4%
Unit 2: Ancient Mediterranean, 3500 BCE–300 CE ~15%
Unit 3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas, 200–1750 CE ~21%
Unit 4: Later Europe and Americas, 1750–1980 CE ~21%
Unit 5: Indigenous Americas, 1000 BCE–1980 CE ~6%
Unit 6: Africa, 1100–1980 CE ~6%
Unit 7: West and Central Asia, 500 BCE–1980 CE ~4%
Unit 8: South, East, and Southeast Asia, 300 BCE–1980 CE ~8%
Unit 9: The Pacific, 700–1980 CE ~4%
Unit 10: Global Contemporary, 1980 CE to Present ~11%

Section: 1 – Multiple Choice Questions

80 Questions | 1 Hour | 50% of Exam Score

This section features 80 multiple-choice questions. Some of the questions have accompanying images, while others do not. All of the photos on the exam will be in color. You may move freely throughout this section. It is wise to answer those questions that you do know immediately, and go back to ponder those that might cause a problem.

There is no penalty for guessing! Every answer should be filled in. If the proctor tells you that you only have a few minutes left, do not leave any answers blank; bubble in all the remaining answers.

This is extremely important because the multiple-choice questions account for 50 percent of the grade!

Section: 2 – Free Response Questions

6 Questions | 2 Hours | 50% of Exam Score

This section is composed of six free-response questions, most associated with illustrations. There are two 30-minute essays and four shorter essays, each timed at 15 minutes.

The two 30-minute essays typically allow students to choose from a wide range of options that span much of the course. More rarely, they address one or two periods. You are free to move among the essays; they are not individually timed. You can answer them in any order, but please ensure that you answer all of them. Even if you draw a complete blank, do your best to respond.

AP Art History Exam Outline

The 10 units in AP Art History, and their weighting on the multiple-choice section of the AP Exam, are listed below.

Multiple Choice Questions

Often, a case can be made for a second choice, but it does not fit as well as the first. You should always do the following when approaching an AP multiple-choice question:

Read each question twice.
Please note that guessing is now permitted on all AP exams. Therefore, there should be no blanks on your paper!

Examples of Multiple-Choice Questions

Changing interpretations of works of art:

1. Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait has been the subject of many interpretations, including

(A) that it is a memorial to parents who are now deceased
(B) that it represents a joyful couple celebrating childbirth
(C) that Arnolfini is conferring legal and business privileges on his wife during an absence
(D) that Arnolfini is pledging support in a legal proceeding about to take place

Answer: (C)

Decision about how works of art will be designed:

2. Louis Sullivan’s decision to use steel coated in ceramic was a result of

(A) his experience working on the Eiffel Tower
(B) his understanding of why buildings were damaged by the Chicago Fire
(C) new technologies available at the beginning of the nineteenth century
(D) the introduction of cantilevers into early modern architecture

Answer: (B)

Free Response Questions

All of the essays are tied to eight art historical thinking skills that the College Board would like every successful student to master. These skills are the following:

1. Visual Analysis (Question 3): Students are expected to be conversant in the basic terms of visual analysis and to show how artistic decisions by an artist shape what we see.

2. Contextual Analysis (Question 4): Students are expected to understand the circumstances behind the creation of a work of art, including factors such as function, setting, and patronage.

3. Comparisons of Works of Art (Question 1): Students are expected to examine similarities and differences between two works of art.

4. Artistic Traditions (Question 6): Students are to explain how a given work of art is typical of an artistic tradition, and also expands upon that tradition.

etc.

There are two types of essays on the Advanced Placement Art History examination: the four short essays of 15 minutes each and the two longer, more comprehensive essays that take 35 minutes for the first essay, and 25 minutes for the second.

Official Study Guide and Practice Test [PDF]

Download free-response questions from past exams along with scoring guidelines, sample responses from exam takers, and scoring distributions.