A chapter explains why a republic collapsed and what followed. Which graphic organizer best fits the text's structure?Own work: the answer rests on the text printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0003
A class is studying a city fire of 1871. Which item is a primary source?Wikipedia, Primary source (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0001
A historian divides the U.S. past into blocks named "antebellum", "Civil War" and "Reconstruction". Which historical concept is at work?Wikipedia, Periodization (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0002
A table gives a town's population as 2,000 in 1850, 8,000 in 1870 and 9,000 in 1890. Which inference is best supported?Own work: the answer rests on the text printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0002
Show all 50 questions (46 more)
Social science foundational skills, continued
A teacher asks why one newspaper called a crowd "protesters" and another called it "a mob". Which vocabulary skill is being taught?Own work: the answer rests on the text printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0003
Archaeologists find charred seeds in the floor of an ancient house. Which method estimates their age from a radioactive form of carbon?Wikipedia, Radiocarbon dating (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0001
Students record planned interviews with veterans about their service and store the recordings in the school library. Which method of inquiry is this?Wikipedia, Oral history (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0001
Students stall on a long sentence in an eighteenth-century essay on government. Which strategy fits close reading?Own work: the answer rests on the text printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0003
Two accounts of a railroad strike disagree: a statement the company gave the press that week, and a memoir a striker wrote thirty years later. What should a student do first?Own work: the answer rests on the text printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0002
Which list is in chronological order, earliest first?National Archives, Milestone Documents (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0002
Social science foundational knowledge 20
A teenager's views on government are shaped by family, school, friends and the media. What do political scientists call this process?Wikipedia, Political socialization (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0004
An anthropologist tries to understand a marriage custom by the standards of the culture that practices it, not by her own. Which principle is she applying?Wikipedia, Cultural relativism (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0009
In the demographic transition model, what happens as a country develops?Wikipedia, Demographic transition (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0008
In which economic system does a central authority plan what is produced and how capital is allocated?Wikipedia, Planned economy (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0005
The pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the Five Pillars of which religion?Wikipedia, Five Pillars of Islam (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0006
The price of coffee rises sharply. What does economic theory predict for tea, a substitute good?Wikipedia, Substitute good (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0005
Under the Constitution, how is the work of removing a federal official divided between the chambers of Congress?National Archives, The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0004
What did the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 say the United States would do?Wikipedia, Monroe Doctrine (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0007
What did the Morrill Act of 1862 give to the states?National Archives, Morrill Act (1862) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0007
What do sociologists call the lifelong process by which people learn the norms and values of their society?Wikipedia, Socialization (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0009
What happens to the purchasing power of a dollar during inflation?Wikipedia, Inflation (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0005
What is desertification?Wikipedia, Desertification (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0008
What is the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 remembered as?Wikipedia, Seneca Falls Convention (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0007
Which colony won independence from Britain in 1947 and was divided into two states at the same time?Wikipedia, Partition of India (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0006
Which law of 1935 guaranteed private-sector workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively?Wikipedia, National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0007
Which network of routes linked China with the Mediterranean world and carried goods, religions and ideas between them?Wikipedia, Silk Road (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0006
Which organization, founded in 1949, commits its members to treat an armed attack on one as an attack on all?Wikipedia, NATO (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0004
Which pamphlet of 1848 argued that the history of all societies is the history of class struggles?Wikipedia, The Communist Manifesto (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0006
Which psychologist described moral development as moving through preconventional, conventional and postconventional levels?Wikipedia, Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0009
Why does Greenland look about as large as Africa on a Mercator map?Wikipedia, Mercator projection (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0008
Historical concepts and world history 9
A historian studies the daily lives of mill workers and their families, not presidents and generals. Which approach to history is this?Wikipedia, Social history (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0010
After 1868, how did the new Japanese government answer the power of the Western states?Wikipedia, Meiji Restoration (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0013
After the Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, where did Roman imperial rule continue for nearly a thousand years?Wikipedia, Byzantine Empire (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0011
The Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest surviving written law codes, comes from which civilization?Wikipedia, Code of Hammurabi (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0011
What does historiography study?Wikipedia, Historiography (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0010
What was the central concern of Renaissance humanism?Wikipedia, Renaissance humanism (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0011
Which act of 1689, passed after the Glorious Revolution, set limits on the English monarch and affirmed the rights of Parliament?Wikipedia, Bill of Rights 1689 (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0012
Which party seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917?Wikipedia, October Revolution (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0013
Which revolution, begun in 1791 by enslaved people in a French colony, ended in an independent state in 1804?Wikipedia, Haitian Revolution (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0012
U.S. history 11
Many farming peoples of precontact North America planted the "Three Sisters" together in one field. Which crops were they?Wikipedia, Three Sisters (agriculture) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0014
The Pullman Strike of 1894 began in a company town near Chicago and tied up rail traffic. How did the federal government respond?Wikipedia, Pullman Strike (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0016
What did the Truman Doctrine of 1947 pledge?National Archives, Truman Doctrine (1947) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0017
Which dispute did the Great Compromise of 1787 settle?Wikipedia, Connecticut Compromise (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0014
Which group formed the core of the People's Party, the Populists, in the 1890s?Wikipedia, People's Party (United States) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0016
Which law of 1965 outlawed literacy tests as a condition for voting and provided for federal examiners to register voters?National Archives, Voting Rights Act (1965) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0017
Which law, signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830, authorized the president to negotiate treaties removing Indian tribes that lived east of the Mississippi River?National Archives, President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal" (1830) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0015
Which New Deal program put unemployed young men to work on conservation projects such as planting trees and building park trails?Wikipedia, Civilian Conservation Corps (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0017
Which Reconstruction amendment barred denying the vote because of race, color or previous condition of servitude?Wikipedia, Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0015
Which treaty ended the Mexican-American War in 1848 and transferred California and much of the present Southwest to the United States?National Archives, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0015
Which weakness of the Articles of Confederation left Congress dependent on the states for money?Wikipedia, Articles of Confederation (read 2026-10-11). Outline: ILTS Social Science: History (315) test framework, objective 0014
How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the test design and framework of Illinois Licensure Testing System (ILTS) field 315, Social Science: History, the redeveloped test that replaced field 246, as the ILTS site prints them (https://www.il.nesinc.com/Content/STUDYGUIDE/IL_SG_OBJ_315.htm and the test page https://www.il.nesinc.com/TestView.aspx?f=HTML_FRAG/IL315_TestPage.html, read 2026-10-11): Social Science Foundational Skills, 20%; Social Science Foundational Knowledge, 40%; Historical Concepts and World History, 17%; U.S. History, 23%; 100 multiple-choice questions (80 scorable), 3 hours 15 minutes of testing time, passing score 240. This bank holds 50 questions, spread 10, 20, 9, 11 over those subareas. Every fact was read on 2026-10-11 in the public page named under its question: the National Archives (the transcription of the Constitution and the milestone documents) and the Wikipedia article named for each remaining question. 5 questions rest on a text or a table printed in the question and on the wording of the objective. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.
How it works
Free, unofficial ILTS history content test practice: 50 questions of our own for the redeveloped Social Science: History test, field 315. This site is not affiliated with the Illinois State Board of Education, which set the passing score, or Pearson.
Read the full guide
Field 315 replaced field 246
The ILTS site says Social Science: History (246) retired on April 5, 2026. The redeveloped test, field 315, has been given since April 7, 2025, so check that your study guide follows the 315 framework.
What the 315 framework weighs
Social science foundational skills 20%, foundational knowledge across the social sciences 40%, historical concepts and world history 17%, U.S. history 23%, as read October 11, 2026. The 50 questions here split 10, 20, 9 and 11. Exam mode draws 40 for 78 minutes, the real pace.
Sources
Explanations cite the National Archives (milestone documents and its transcription of the Constitution) or a named Wikipedia article. Five skills questions rest on the text printed in the question.
World history comes in three spans: prehistory to 1500 CE, 1450 to 1850, and 1850 onward.
U.S. history comes in four: to the creation of the federal government, 1789 to 1877, Reconstruction's end to 1914, and World War I onward.
Objective 0010 is about history as a discipline: approaches such as social and political history, and debates among historians.
Questions and answers
What is the passing score for the ILTS history test?
240 on a scale of 100 to 300, the same mark the retired test 246 listed. No subarea has to be passed by itself: the score report explanation gives no passing score for a single subarea.
How many questions are on the ILTS Social Science: History test?
100 multiple-choice questions in 3 hours 15 minutes. By the framework 80 are scorable, spread 16, 32, 14 and 18 over the four subareas, and 20 are not.
How much of the ILTS history test is history?
The two history subareas carry 40% of the score. World and U.S. history also sit in the foundational knowledge subarea, beside government, economics, geography and the behavioral sciences.
How long do you wait to retake the ILTS history test?
Fourteen days. That is the wait the ILTS retake policy sets for content-area tests, and a retake means registering again.