Texas STAAR US History (United States History Since 1877): complete guide to the redesigned EOC, the four reporting categories, the new item types, and how to study every era

The Texas STAAR United States History Since 1877 examination is the high school US history end-of-course (EOC) test administered by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). STAAR stands for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. This page is the index: it explains the exam, the four TEKS reporting categories and their weights, the redesigned online item types, when you take the test, how it is scored, and how to study each era. The content runs from the end of Reconstruction (1877) to the present, and we have organized it into six modules that follow the chronological story while mapping onto the four reporting categories.

The course and the test

The course is officially United States History Studies Since 1877, set out in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) at 19 TAC 113.41. It is a one-year high school survey of US history from the close of Reconstruction to the present day. The STAAR US History EOC is the state test for that course. It is one of five STAAR EOC assessments required for graduation from a Texas public high school, alongside Algebra I, English I, English II, and Biology. You sit it at the end of the course, most often in eleventh grade.

Exam format

The STAAR US History test is delivered online and has a five-hour time limit. Based on the TEA blueprint, it has about 68 questions worth roughly 78 points. Crucially, the test was redesigned for the 2022 to 2023 school year to satisfy House Bill 3906, which caps multiple choice at no more than 75 percent of the points. The remaining points come from newer item types.

There is no essay on US History. The extended written response exists only on the reading and English EOCs. Every point on US History comes from objective items, so your skill is fast, accurate analysis of stimulus sources: quotations, political cartoons, maps, charts, photographs, and data tables.

The four reporting categories

Every question is assigned to one of four reporting categories. Three of them are thematic, not chronological, which is the single most important thing to understand about this test: you must read every era through the lenses of geography, government, and economics, not just memorize a timeline.

History is the largest single category, but categories 2, 3, and 4 together are over half the test. A student who knows only the chronological story will struggle on the thematic questions.

The redesigned item types

The redesign replaced a pure multiple-choice test with a mix of types. Expect:

• Single-select multiple choice. The classic four-option question.
• Multiselect. Pick all the correct answers (for example, "select the three results of the New Deal").
• Multipart / evidence-based. A Part A makes a claim or asks a question; a Part B asks for the source or evidence that best supports your Part A answer.
• Hot spot. Click a region on a map, a point on a timeline, or part of an image.
• Hot text. Highlight the words or sentence in a passage that answer the question.
• Drag and drop. Move events, labels, or causes into the right order or category.
• Inline choice. Choose from a dropdown inside a sentence to complete a statement.
• Match table grid. Classify several items into categories in a table.

The eras you must know

The History reporting category is built on the major eras of US history since 1877. Each of our six modules is one cluster of these eras, with dot-point pages and practice questions:

• Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1877 to 1914): industrialization, big business and trusts, the new immigration and urbanization, the Populist movement, and Progressive reform.
• Imperialism and World War I (1890 to 1920): overseas expansion, the Spanish-American War, US entry into World War I, the home front, and the Treaty of Versailles.
• The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression (1920 to 1940): the prosperity and culture of the 1920s, the social conflicts of the decade, the causes of the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal.
• World War II (1939 to 1945): the causes of the war, US entry after Pearl Harbor, the home front, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb.
• The Cold War and Civil Rights (1945 to 1975): containment, the Cold War conflicts, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, and the rights movements that followed.
• The Modern United States (1970s to the present): the conservative resurgence, the end of the Cold War, the technology and globalization economy, and contemporary America including September 11.

How to study for the STAAR US History EOC

1. Learn each era as a story of cause and effect, then attach the required people, documents, court cases, and laws to it. The History category rewards knowing why an era happened and what it produced.
2. Practice the four reporting categories deliberately. For every era, ask the geography question (who moved where, and why), the government question (which amendment, law, or court case applies), and the economics question (free enterprise, labor, depression, or globalization).
3. Drill the new item types. A multipart evidence-based item is scored differently from a single multiple-choice question, and hot text or drag and drop reward close reading of the stimulus. Practice them on TEA released tests.
4. Get fast at reading stimulus sources. Most questions hang off a quotation, cartoon, map, chart, or photograph. The faster you can extract the point of a source, the more time you have to think.

Use the module guides for a deep-dive overview of each era, and the dot-point pages for the specific people, events, and analysis the TEKS require.