Context: U.S. as a Global Leader
Sets up the two major themes of Period 8: U.S. global leadership through Cold War competition and the domestic consequences of that competition for civil liberties and federal power.
APUSH Unit 8 Review: The Postwar Period and Cold War, 1945-1980
- 10–17% of AP multiple choice
- 15 topics
- AP exam review verified for 2027
Unit 8 asks you to explain how Cold War competition shaped U.S. foreign policy, how postwar prosperity and suburbanization transformed American society, and how overlapping civil rights, feminist, student, and environmental movements challenged the status quo, while a growing conservative movement pushed back against liberal governance.
Fiveable's AP US History Unit 8 review covers 15 topics, with guided practice questions for the unit.
APUSH unit 8 topics
The Cold War from 1945 to 1980
Traces Cold War policy from the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan through NATO, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, and detente, showing continuity and change in containment strategy.
The Red Scare
Examines how fear of communist infiltration produced HUAC investigations, McCarthyism, loyalty oaths, and blacklists, raising fundamental questions about civil liberties during national security crises.
Economy after 1945
Covers the postwar economic boom driven by the G.I. Bill, baby boom, federal highway spending, and technological growth, including suburbanization and Sun Belt migration.
Culture after 1945
Analyzes how television, consumer culture, and suburban conformity defined postwar mass culture, and how the Beat Generation and other dissenters challenged those norms.
Early Steps in the Civil Rights Movement (1940s and 1950s)
Covers Executive Order 9981, Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the NAACP's legal strategy as the foundation for the 1960s movement.
America as a World Power
Examines U.S. Cold War involvement in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, including debates over the military-industrial complex and the challenge of nonaligned nations.
The Vietnam War
Traces U.S. escalation from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the Tet Offensive and Nixon's Vietnamization, and analyzes the war's effects on executive power and public trust.
The Great Society
Covers Johnson's Great Society programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty, and the Immigration Act of 1965, representing the high point of postwar liberalism.
The African American Civil Rights Movement (1960s)
Focuses on direct action campaigns, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the shift toward Black Power after 1965.
The Civil Rights Movement Expands
Covers the feminist movement, LGBTQ+ activism, Latino organizing through the United Farm Workers, and the American Indian Movement as parallel struggles for equality.
Youth Culture of the 1960s
Examines the New Left, SDS, antiwar protests, and the counterculture as interconnected challenges to Cold War liberalism and postwar social conformity.
The Environment and Natural Resources from 1968 to 1980
Covers the environmental movement, Earth Day, the EPA, Clean Air and Water Acts, and the 1973 oil embargo's impact on energy policy.
Society in Transition
Analyzes the rise of conservatism, Watergate, stagflation, evangelical political activism, and the culture wars that fractured the New Deal coalition and set up the Reagan revolution.
Continuity and Change in Period 8
Synthesis topic asking students to assess what fundamentally changed and what persisted in American society, politics, and foreign policy between 1945 and 1980.
Practice APUSH unit 8 questions
Try AP-style questions on unit 8, then use the review notes below for anything you miss.
APUSH unit 8 practice test
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Unit 8 review notes
8.1
Contextualizing Period 8
The United States emerged from World War II as the world's leading economic and military power, but faced an unstable postwar world defined by Soviet expansion, decolonization, and domestic social pressure. Two key concepts frame the entire period: the U.S. commitment to global leadership and the domestic consequences of that commitment.
- KC-8.1 global leadership: The U.S. asserted a position of global leadership after 1945, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences including military alliances, foreign aid, and ideological competition.
- Cold War ideological divide: American democracy and capitalism versus Soviet communism structured foreign policy decisions from the Truman Doctrine through detente.
- Domestic consequences: Cold War policies sparked debates over civil liberties, federal power, and acceptable means of pursuing national security, seen most clearly in McCarthyism and Vietnam-era dissent.
Can you explain two specific ways the Cold War shaped domestic policy debates inside the United States?
8.2
Cold War policy and the Red Scare
U.S. Cold War strategy rested on containment, the idea articulated by George F. Kennan that Soviet expansion must be checked without direct war. This produced a range of tools: economic aid, military alliances, proxy wars, and nuclear deterrence. At home, fear of communist infiltration produced the Second Red Scare, loyalty investigations, and McCarthyism.
- Containment: The foundational U.S. Cold War strategy, implemented through the Truman Doctrine (aid to Greece and Turkey), the Marshall Plan (economic aid to Western Europe), and NATO (collective security alliance).
- Korean War: The first major military application of containment, 1950-1953, ending in an armistice that preserved the pre-war division of Korea at the 38th parallel.
- McCarthyism and HUAC: Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee led investigations into alleged communist infiltration of government, Hollywood, and labor unions, often violating civil liberties through guilt by association.
- Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs: High-profile espionage cases that intensified public fear of communist subversion and gave credibility to Red Scare investigations.
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): A 13-day nuclear standoff over Soviet missiles in Cuba that represented the peak of Cold War brinkmanship and led to limited arms control agreements.
What is the difference between containment as a strategy and McCarthyism as a domestic phenomenon? How did each affect civil liberties?
| Policy/Event | Goal | Key Tool | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truman Doctrine (1947) | Contain communism in Greece and Turkey | Military and economic aid | Established precedent for U.S. intervention |
| Marshall Plan (1948) | Rebuild Western Europe economically | Foreign economic aid | Stabilized Western democracies against communist appeal |
| NATO (1949) | Collective military defense | Military alliance | Permanent U.S. military commitment to Europe |
| Korean War (1950-53) | Defend South Korea from communist North | Military force | Armistice; Korea remains divided |
| McCarthyism (1950-54) | Root out domestic communist influence | Congressional investigations, blacklists | Civil liberties violations; McCarthy censured in 1954 |
8.4
Postwar economy and culture
The postwar economic boom was driven by federal spending, the G.I. Bill, the baby boom, and technological expansion. Suburbanization reshaped American geography, with the Sun Belt emerging as a new political and economic force. Mass culture became increasingly homogeneous through television and consumer goods, but that conformity generated resistance.
- G.I. Bill (1944): Provided veterans with college tuition, low-interest home loans, and unemployment benefits, fueling suburban growth and expanding the middle class.
- Baby boom: A dramatic rise in birth rates from 1946 to 1964 that drove demand for housing, schools, and consumer goods, reshaping American demographics.
- Suburbanization and Levittown: Mass-produced suburban communities like Levittown symbolized postwar prosperity but also reinforced racial segregation through restrictive covenants and FHA lending practices.
- Sun Belt migration: Americans moved to the South and West in large numbers, shifting political power and creating new economic centers in states like California, Texas, and Florida.
- Beat Generation: Writers and artists including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg rejected postwar conformity and consumer culture, prefiguring the 1960s counterculture.
How did the G.I. Bill contribute to both economic growth and racial inequality in postwar America?
8.6
Early civil rights movement (1940s-1950s)
Civil rights activism accelerated after World War II as Black veterans returned from fighting for democracy abroad and confronted segregation at home. Early victories came through legal challenges, executive action, and grassroots organizing, though progress was slow and met with fierce resistance.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948): President Truman desegregated the U.S. armed forces, an early federal action on civil rights driven partly by Cold War optics.
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954): The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson's 'separate but equal' doctrine.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56): A 381-day boycott sparked by Rosa Parks's arrest that launched Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence and demonstrated the power of nonviolent economic pressure.
- NAACP legal strategy: The NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall, pursued a deliberate litigation strategy targeting segregation in courts, culminating in Brown v. Board.
- Emmett Till (1955): The brutal murder of a 14-year-old Black teenager in Mississippi and the acquittal of his killers galvanized national attention to racial violence in the South.
What role did each branch of the federal government play in early civil rights progress between 1945 and 1960?
8.7
America as a world power and the Vietnam War
Cold War competition extended beyond Europe to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The United States supported non-communist regimes regardless of their democratic credentials. Vietnam became the defining foreign policy crisis of the era, escalating from advisory support to full-scale war and generating massive domestic opposition.
- Domino Theory: The belief that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would follow, used to justify U.S. intervention in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964): Congressional authorization that gave President Johnson broad authority to escalate military action in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war, later seen as based on misleading information.
- Tet Offensive (1968): A massive coordinated North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attack on South Vietnamese cities that shattered public confidence in U.S. claims of progress in the war.
- Military-industrial complex: President Eisenhower's term for the growing relationship between the defense industry and the military establishment, which he warned could distort national priorities.
- Decolonization and nonalignment: Newly independent nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East often refused to align with either superpower, complicating U.S. Cold War strategy.
How did the Vietnam War change the relationship between the executive branch and Congress regarding war powers?
| Conflict | Region | U.S. Rationale | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Korean War | East Asia | Contain communist North Korea | Armistice; Korea divided at 38th parallel |
| Vietnam War | Southeast Asia | Prevent communist takeover of South Vietnam | U.S. withdrawal; communist reunification of Vietnam |
| Cuba policy | Latin America | Prevent communist foothold in Western Hemisphere | Bay of Pigs failure; missile crisis resolved diplomatically |
| Middle East involvement | Middle East | Secure oil access; limit Soviet influence | Eisenhower Doctrine; ongoing regional instability |
8.9
The Great Society and liberal governance
Liberalism reached its high-water mark under Lyndon Johnson, whose Great Society programs used federal legislation to attack poverty, racial discrimination, and lack of access to education and healthcare. The Immigration Act of 1965 also fundamentally changed who could enter the United States.
- Great Society: Johnson's ambitious domestic program that produced Medicare, Medicaid, the Economic Opportunity Act, federal education funding, and the Voting Rights Act, representing the peak of New Deal-style liberalism.
- War on Poverty: A cluster of Great Society programs including Head Start, Job Corps, and community action programs aimed at eliminating poverty through federal intervention.
- Immigration Act of 1965: Abolished the national origins quota system that had favored European immigrants since the 1920s, opening immigration to Asia, Latin America, and Africa and dramatically changing U.S. demographics.
- Medicare and Medicaid: Federal health insurance programs created in 1965 providing coverage for the elderly and low-income Americans, expanding the federal government's role in healthcare.
What were the main goals of the Great Society, and what political conditions made it possible to pass such sweeping legislation in the mid-1960s?
8.10
Civil rights movement expands: 1960s and beyond
The 1960s civil rights movement escalated from legal challenges to direct action, sit-ins, freedom rides, and mass marches. Federal legislation followed, but debates over strategy intensified after 1965. The movement also inspired Latino, American Indian, Asian American, feminist, and LGBTQ+ activists to organize for their own rights.
- Civil Rights Act of 1964: Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment and public accommodations, the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
- Voting Rights Act of 1965: Prohibited discriminatory voting practices and authorized federal oversight of elections in states with histories of voter suppression, dramatically increasing Black voter registration in the South.
- Black Power movement: After 1965, organizations like the Black Panther Party emphasized racial pride, self-defense, and economic self-determination, moving away from integration and nonviolence as primary strategies.
- Feminist movement: Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) and the founding of the National Organization for Women (1966) challenged domestic gender roles and pushed for legal and economic equality.
- Latino and American Indian movements: Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers organized Latino agricultural workers, while the American Indian Movement demanded treaty rights and an end to federal termination policy.
How did the goals and tactics of the civil rights movement shift between 1960 and 1975, and what caused those shifts?
| Movement | Key Organizations | Primary Tactics | Major Legislation or Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| African American civil rights | SCLC, SNCC, NAACP, CORE | Nonviolent direct action, litigation, marches | Civil Rights Act 1964, Voting Rights Act 1965 |
| Black Power | Black Panther Party | Self-defense, community programs, political organizing | Shift in national debate on race and power |
| Feminist movement | NOW, women's liberation groups | Lobbying, consciousness-raising, litigation | Title IX (1972), Roe v. Wade (1973) |
| Latino movement | United Farm Workers, La Raza | Strikes, boycotts, community organizing | Increased labor protections, political representation |
| American Indian Movement | AIM | Occupation protests (Alcatraz, Wounded Knee) | Indian Self-Determination Act (1975) |
8.12
Youth culture and the counterculture of the 1960s
The baby boom generation came of age during the Vietnam War and civil rights struggle, producing a youth counterculture that rejected postwar conformity, consumer values, and Cold War foreign policy. Student activism, antiwar protest, and cultural experimentation defined the era.
- Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): A leading New Left organization whose Port Huron Statement (1962) called for participatory democracy and criticized Cold War militarism and racial inequality.
- Antiwar movement: As Vietnam casualties mounted and the draft expanded, campus protests grew, culminating in events like the 1970 Kent State shootings, where National Guard troops killed four student protesters.
- Counterculture: Young Americans embraced alternative lifestyles, rock music, communal living, and challenges to sexual norms, symbolized by events like Woodstock (1969) and the Summer of Love (1967).
- New Left critique: Some activists argued that mainstream liberalism did too little to address racial and economic inequality at home while pursuing immoral wars abroad, pushing for more radical transformation.
How did the Vietnam War connect antiwar protest to broader youth counterculture, and what were the political consequences of that connection?
8.13
Environment and energy, 1968-1980
Environmental disasters, pollution, and the 1973 OPEC oil embargo pushed environmental and energy policy onto the national agenda. A bipartisan environmental movement produced landmark legislation and new federal agencies, while oil crises exposed U.S. dependence on foreign energy.
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Created by President Nixon in 1970 to enforce environmental regulations, reflecting bipartisan recognition of pollution as a national problem.
- Earth Day (1970): A mass public demonstration that mobilized millions of Americans around environmental concerns and helped build political momentum for federal environmental legislation.
- Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act: Major federal laws passed in the early 1970s that set national pollution standards and expanded federal regulatory authority over air and water quality.
- OPEC oil embargo (1973): Arab oil-producing nations cut off oil exports to the United States in response to U.S. support for Israel, causing fuel shortages, long gas lines, and economic disruption that accelerated interest in energy independence.
How did the oil crisis of 1973 connect foreign policy concerns to domestic energy and environmental policy debates?
8.14
Society in transition: conservatism, Watergate, and stagflation
By the late 1960s, a conservative movement was challenging liberal governance on multiple fronts: opposition to Great Society programs, resistance to court-ordered busing, and concern over perceived moral decline. Watergate, stagflation, and foreign policy failures eroded public trust in government and accelerated political realignment.
- Conservative movement: Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign and Richard Nixon's 1968 'silent majority' appeal marked the rise of a new conservatism that opposed federal overreach, busing, and liberal social policy.
- Watergate scandal: The 1972 break-in at Democratic Party headquarters and Nixon's subsequent cover-up led to his 1974 resignation, deepening public distrust of government institutions.
- Stagflation: The combination of high inflation and high unemployment in the 1970s defied Keynesian economic assumptions and undermined confidence in liberal economic management.
- Evangelical political activism: The rapid growth of evangelical Christian churches in the 1970s produced organizations like the Moral Majority that mobilized religious conservatives around issues like abortion, school prayer, and traditional family values.
- Culture wars: Clashes between conservatives and liberals over Roe v. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, busing, and affirmative action reflected deep divisions over the direction of American society.
What combination of factors eroded public confidence in liberal governance between 1968 and 1980, and how did conservatives capitalize on that erosion?
8.15
Continuity and change in Period 8
Topic 8.15 asks you to synthesize the entire period by assessing what changed and what persisted between 1945 and 1980. The United States emerged from the period with a transformed domestic landscape but also with enduring patterns of inequality, ongoing debates over federal power, and unresolved Cold War commitments.
- Change: civil rights legislation: Legal segregation was dismantled through Brown, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, representing a fundamental change in the legal status of African Americans.
- Continuity: racial and economic inequality: Despite legal gains, economic inequality, residential segregation, and racial disparities in wealth and opportunity persisted throughout the period.
- Change: role of federal government: The Great Society dramatically expanded federal programs in education, healthcare, and poverty relief, though conservative backlash began reversing that expansion by 1980.
- Continuity: Cold War competition: Despite detente and the end of Vietnam, U.S.-Soviet rivalry and the logic of containment continued to shape foreign policy through the end of the period.
- Political realignment: The New Deal coalition fractured as white Southern Democrats moved toward the Republican Party in response to civil rights legislation, reshaping the electoral map for decades.
Write a thesis statement that addresses the extent to which the period 1945-1980 reshaped American national identity, using at least two specific pieces of evidence.
Key terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Domino Theory | The belief that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would follow in sequence, used to justify U.S. military intervention in Korea and Vietnam. |
| McCarthyism | The campaign led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and HUAC in the early 1950s to expose alleged communist infiltration of U.S. government and culture, often through guilt by association and disregard for civil liberties. |
| G.I. Bill | The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, which provided veterans with college tuition, low-interest home loans, and unemployment benefits, fueling postwar suburban growth and middle-class expansion. |
| Baby Boom | The dramatic rise in U.S. birth rates from 1946 to 1964, which drove demand for suburban housing, consumer goods, and schools, reshaping American demographics and culture. |
| Brown v. Board of Education (1954) | The Supreme Court decision that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and providing the legal foundation for the civil rights movement. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | The 1962 thirteen-day standoff between the U.S. and Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, the closest the Cold War came to direct nuclear conflict. |
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | The 1964 congressional authorization that gave President Johnson broad authority to escalate military action in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war, later seen as based on misleading information. |
| Civil Rights Act of 1964 | Landmark legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment and public accommodations, the most sweeping civil rights law since Reconstruction. |
| Immigration Act of 1965 | Abolished the national origins quota system favoring European immigrants and opened immigration to Asia, Latin America, and Africa, fundamentally changing U.S. demographic composition. |
| Black Power Movement | A post-1965 shift in civil rights activism, associated with organizations like the Black Panther Party, that emphasized racial pride, self-determination, and economic empowerment over integration and nonviolence. |
| Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) | Federal agency created in 1970 to enforce environmental regulations, reflecting bipartisan recognition of pollution as a national crisis requiring federal action. |
| Counterculture | The 1960s youth movement that rejected postwar conformity, consumer values, and Cold War militarism, expressed through alternative lifestyles, rock music, and political activism. |
How to review unit 8
Topics students miss most
Miss rates come from Fiveable multiple-choice practice.
Common unit 8 mistakes
Treating containment as a single unchanging policy
Containment evolved significantly from Truman's military and economic aid to Eisenhower's massive retaliation doctrine to Nixon's detente. On continuity and change questions, you need to show how the strategy shifted, not just that it existed.
Conflating the civil rights movement with a single strategy or leader
The movement used multiple tactics simultaneously: NAACP litigation, SCLC nonviolent direct action, SNCC grassroots organizing, and after 1965, Black Power's emphasis on self-determination. Treating it as only Martin Luther King Jr. and nonviolence misses the complexity the exam rewards.
Assuming the Great Society was universally popular
Conservative opposition to Great Society programs began immediately in the mid-1960s, not just after Watergate. Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign and the Southern Strategy show that backlash was concurrent with liberal expansion, not just a reaction to its failure.
Misreading the Vietnam War as only a foreign policy story
Vietnam's domestic consequences are equally important for APUSH: the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution expanded executive war powers, the antiwar movement fractured the Democratic Party, and the war's failure contributed to the conservative realignment of the 1970s.
Overlooking the connections between social movements
The feminist movement, American Indian Movement, and Latino organizing explicitly drew on the tactics and language of the African American civil rights movement. Exam questions on Topic 8.11 expect you to show those connections, not treat each movement in isolation.
How this unit shows up on the AP exam
Continuity and change over time (CCOT) across the Cold War
APUSH frequently asks you to trace how a policy or movement changed over a long period. For Unit 8, be ready to explain how Cold War containment strategy evolved from Truman through Nixon, or how the civil rights movement's goals and tactics shifted from the 1940s through the 1970s. Strong responses identify both what changed and what remained consistent, with specific evidence from multiple decades.
Causation and comparison across social movements
Exam tasks often ask you to explain why multiple groups mobilized for rights during the same period, or to compare the strategies and outcomes of different movements. Practice explaining how the African American civil rights movement provided a model that feminist, Latino, and American Indian activists adapted, and how federal responses differed across those movements.
Argumentation using primary sources on government power
Document-based questions in APUSH frequently use sources that debate the proper role of the federal government. Unit 8 is rich with this material: debates over McCarthyism and civil liberties, arguments for and against Great Society programs, antiwar critiques of executive war powers, and conservative arguments against federal overreach. Practice identifying the argument, audience, and historical situation of each source type, and use outside evidence to support or complicate the documents' claims.
More ways to review
Topic study guides
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Practice questions
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FRQ practice
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Cram archive videos
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Official unit cheatsheet
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Score calculator
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Unit 8 printables
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get printablesFrequently Asked Questions
What's on the APUSH Unit 8 progress check (MCQ and FRQ)?
The APUSH Unit 8 progress check includes both MCQ and FRQ parts drawn from the unit's 15 topics. The MCQ section tests your understanding of Cold War containment policy, the Red Scare, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and social movements like the feminist and environmental movements. The FRQ part typically asks you to analyze continuity and change or causation across this 1945-1980 period. For matched practice questions that mirror the progress check format, head to /apush/unit-8.
How do I practice APUSH Unit 8 FRQs?
The best way to practice APUSH Unit 8 FRQs is to focus on the topics that generate the most free-response prompts: the civil rights movement, Cold War foreign policy, the Vietnam War, and the Great Society. Unit 8 FRQs most often appear as Long Essay Questions (LEQs) or Document-Based Questions (DBQs) asking you to argue causation, continuity and change over time, or comparison across the 1945-1980 period. To practice, write out a thesis for each major topic, then build an argument with specific evidence. Topics like The African American Civil Rights Movement (1960s), The Cold War from 1945-1980, and Society in Transition are strong starting points. Find practice prompts and scoring guidance at /apush/unit-8.
Where can I find APUSH Unit 8 practice questions?
You can find APUSH Unit 8 multiple-choice practice questions and practice test sets at /apush/unit-8. That page includes MCQs covering Cold War policy, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Great Society, and the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. For the best results, work through practice questions topic by topic, starting with The Cold War from 1945-1980 and The African American Civil Rights Movement (1960s), since those appear most frequently on the exam. Timed practice sets help you build the pacing you need for the real MCQ section.
How should I study APUSH Unit 8?
Start APUSH Unit 8 by building a clear timeline from 1945 to 1980, anchoring events like the start of the Cold War, the early civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Great Society to specific dates and causes. That timeline becomes your backbone for every FRQ argument. Here's a concrete study plan: 1. Read each topic in order (8.1 through 8.15) so you see how Cold War anxiety abroad connects to social change at home.
2. Make a cause-and-effect chart for the civil rights movement, tracing from Early Steps in the Civil Rights Movement (1940s and 1950s) through The Civil Rights Movement Expands.
3. Practice one LEQ thesis per major theme: Cold War containment, domestic prosperity and its limits, and social movement backlash.
4. Test yourself with MCQs after every two or three topics to catch gaps early.
5. Review Continuity and Change in Period 8 (8.15) last, since it ties the whole unit together and mirrors how the AP exam frames synthesis questions. All the topics and practice tools are at /apush/unit-8.