Virginia and United States History SOL End-of-Course test (VUS): complete guide to the 2015 History and Social Science Standards of Learning, the four reporting categories, the item types, the 0 to 600 scoring, and Virginia's role in the American story

The Virginia and United States History Standards of Learning (SOL) End-of-Course (EOC) test, the VUS exam, is Virginia's statewide high school United States history assessment, administered by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). It measures the Virginia and United States History course standards in the 2015 History and Social Science Standards of Learning, the VUS.1 to VUS.14 standards. This page is the index: it explains the item types, the four reporting categories, the format and scoring, why Virginia is emphasized, and how to study each era. The content runs from early exploration to the present and is organized here into six modules that follow the chronological story while mapping onto the four reporting categories.

The course and the test

Virginia and United States History (often shortened to "VUS" after its standard codes) is the full survey course: it begins before European contact and ends in the present day. The EOC test at the end is the verified-credit assessment. Because the course is a survey, the test rewards a sweep of the whole American story rather than deep mastery of one period, and because it is Virginia's course, it threads Virginia's contributions through the national narrative.

The item types

The VUS EOC is delivered online through TestNav and uses two kinds of machine-scored items.

• Multiple choice. Four answer options (A, B, C, D) with one correct answer. Many are stimulus based: they hang off a primary-source quotation, a political cartoon, a map, a chart, a table, a photograph, or a timeline that you read first.
• Technology-enhanced items (TEIs). The computer collects the response in another way. Common formats are ordering (drag events into chronological sequence), multi-select (choose all the correct answers, not just one), matching (link causes to effects or people to achievements), drag-and-drop into a chart or diagram, and hot spot (click a region on a map). There is no essay and no written short answer.

The single most useful exam skill is fast, accurate source analysis, because so many items make you interpret a document before you can answer.

The four reporting categories

VDOE's test blueprint groups the VUS standards into four chronological reporting categories and lists how many items come from each. The four periods are weighted fairly evenly, so you cannot skip an era.

Standard VUS.1, the historical and geographical thinking skills, is not a separate era. It is the skill set, analyzing sources, judging evidence, using maps and timelines, that runs through every category, which is why so many items are stimulus based.

How the test is scored

Your raw score is converted to a scale score from 0 to 600 for that form. 400 is the cut for Proficient (a pass), and 500 is the cut for Advanced. A score below 400 does not pass. The scale is equated for each test form, so the precise number of items needed to reach 400 can shift slightly between forms; the reported cut scores are always 400 and 500. A passing VUS result can earn a verified credit toward a Standard or Advanced Studies Diploma.

Why Virginia is emphasized

The course is Virginia and United States History, and the SOL deliberately puts Virginia at the center of the national story. Expect specific items on:

• Jamestown (1607), the first permanent English settlement, and the Virginia Company.
• The House of Burgesses (1619), the first elected legislative assembly in English America, and the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia the same year.
• Virginia's founders: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison ("Father of the Constitution"), George Mason, and Patrick Henry. Four of the first five presidents were Virginians.
• George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), which shaped the Bill of Rights.
• Virginia as the capital of the Confederacy (Richmond) and the site of Appomattox Court House (1865).
• Virginia's Massive Resistance to school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education, a national civil-rights flashpoint.

How to study Virginia and United States History

1. Learn each era as a story anchored to the VUS standards, not a pile of disconnected dates.
2. Layer in specific evidence: the founding documents, key people, landmark laws, and the constitutional questions (federalism, rights) that recur across eras.
3. Track Virginia's thread through the national story, because the test asks about it directly.
4. Drill the TEI skills, ordering, matching, multi-select, hot spots, on VDOE's released practice items so the on-screen format is familiar.
5. Get fast at source analysis. Practice pulling the main idea and point of view from a quotation or cartoon, and reading a map or data table, in under a minute.

The modules, topic by topic

Each topic has a standard-level answer page with worked exam questions and cross-links, plus a deep-dive guide and a quiz. Browse the set at /va-sol/us-history/syllabus.

Module 1: Colonial foundations and the Revolution (VUS.1 to VUS.4)

historical and geographical thinking skills, exploration and the Columbian Exchange, Jamestown and the Virginia colony, colonial society and the growth of slavery, the road to revolution, the American Revolution.

Module 2: The Constitution and the early republic (VUS.5 to VUS.6)

the Articles of Confederation and the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the new government and Washington's precedents, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, antebellum reform movements.

Module 3: Expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction (VUS.6 to VUS.7)

sectionalism and the coming of the Civil War, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, Reconstruction and its amendments, the end of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the closing of the frontier and American Indians.

Module 4: Industrialization, imperialism, and World War I (VUS.8 to VUS.9)

industrialization and the Gilded Age, immigration and urbanization, the Progressive Era, American imperialism and the Spanish-American War, World War I and American involvement, the home front and the peace.

Module 5: The Twenties, the Depression, and World War II (VUS.10)

the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the New Deal, the road to World War II, World War II abroad, the World War II home front.

Module 6: The Cold War, civil rights, and the modern era (VUS.11 to VUS.14)

the Cold War and containment, the Cold War at home and abroad, the civil rights movement, an era of social change, the end of the Cold War, the United States in the modern era.

For the official guidance

VDOE publishes the 2015 History and Social Science Standards of Learning, the test blueprints, and released practice items with technology-enhanced examples. Always study from the current VDOE materials, because the standards, the blueprint, and the item types are specific to this exam.