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Descriptive Statements:
- Demonstrate knowledge of important social, economic, and political features of major Native American cultures of the precontact period.
- Examine major events and developments related to the European exploration of North America, including the objectives of various explorers, the consequences of key expeditions and settlements, and competition and conflict between European nations.
- Analyze coexistence and conflict between Europeans and Native Americans, including the different cultural perspectives of the two groups.
- Compare similarities and differences between the New England, mid-Atlantic, and southern colonies, including reasons for migration to North America, ethnic diversity, and patterns of social and economic development.
- Analyze major economic, social, political, and cultural developments in the colonies, including the influence of the triangular trade on colonial economic development, the growth of slavery, the role of colonial assemblies and the emergence of representative government, the Great Awakening and the evolution of religious freedom, and economic and political relations with Great Britain.
- Examine major causes, events, developments, and consequences of the Revolutionary War, including the influence of Enlightenment thought on Americans, changes in British imperial policy following the French and Indian War, arguments over the rights of English people, the Stamp Act crisis and the Townshend Acts, efforts to achieve colonial unity, the roles and perspectives of various groups during the war, major battles of the conflict, economic issues arising out of the Revolution, and the effects of the Revolution on various social groups.
- Analyze the evolution of national and state governments during and after the Revolution, including arguments over the Articles of Confederation, the creation of state constitutions, differences between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, major debates and compromises at the Constitutional Convention, and the struggle for ratification of the Constitution.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the period, such as John Smith, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, William Penn, James Oglethorpe, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Chief Pontiac, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Banneker, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Abigail Adams.
- Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments of the period.
- Analyze major social, economic, political, and cultural trends in the colonies and the new nation from the beginnings of settlement to 1789.
Sample Item:
In the 15 years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, the growing conflict between the British government and British colonists in North America centered primarily on:
- what share of colonial revenues belonged to Great Britain.
- who would make decisions regarding the colonists' property and political rights.
- who was responsible for defending the colonies from military attack.
- how the settlement of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains would be controlled.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
B. This question requires the examinee to examine major causes, events, and consequences of the Revolutionary War. Colonists viewed British initiatives such as the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Coercive Acts as a threat to property and their right to self-government, particularly the right of colonial assemblies to levy taxes.
Descriptive Statements:
- Examine major political and constitutional developments of the period, including the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, Jeffersonian Republicanism, John Marshall and the Supreme Court, the decline of the Federalist Party, the emergence of Jacksonian democracy, debates over the tariff and the national bank, the Nullification Crisis, and differences between the Democratic and Whig parties.
- Analyze events and developments related to westward expansion, including major territorial acquisitions, government-sponsored exploration of the West, factors encouraging migration, economic motives and ideological and religious justifications, the challenges faced by settlers, and the impact of westward settlement and growth on Native American peoples.
- Analyze the causes and consequences of economic growth during the period, including improvements in transportation, technological innovations, the spread of factory production, immigration and urbanization, the panics of 1819 and 1837, and the effects of industrialization on different regions and social groups.
- Examine major events and developments in U.S. foreign relations, including the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Mexican War.
- Examine the origins and objectives of major antebellum reform movements and the activities and achievements of key reformers, such as William Lloyd Garrison, the Grimké sisters, Frederick Douglass, Frances Wright, Robert Owen, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horace Mann, and Dorothea Dix.
- Analyze the impact of slavery in the United States, including the role of slavery in southern society, forces promoting the expansion of slavery, the emergence of a distinctive African American culture, slave resistance, the development of pro-slavery arguments, and the influence of slavery on national politics.
- Examine major political developments of the 1850s that contributed to the sectional polarization that resulted in the Civil War, including the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the disruption of the second American party system, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, and the presidential election of 1860.
- Analyze major events and developments of the Civil War, including the strategies adopted by Union and Confederate military leaders, major battles and diplomatic initiatives, wartime draft riots, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the election of 1864.
- Analyze key events and developments of the Reconstruction period, including alternative programs for Reconstruction; conflict between President Johnson and Congress; the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments; the programs of Radical state governments in the South; Southern White resistance to Reconstruction; the role of the U.S. Supreme Court; and the Compromise of 1877.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technological developments from 1789 to 1877.
- Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Sample Item:
The Nullification Crisis of the early 1830s centered on which of the following questions?
- What are the powers of the judiciary in a government based on separation of powers?
- What are the rights of individuals in a democratic system of government?
- What are the powers of executive officials in a government based on the rule of law?
- What are the rights of the states in a federal system of government?
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
D. This question requires the examinee to examine major political and constitutional developments of the early national and Jacksonian eras. The Nullification Crisis centered on John C. Calhoun's doctrine that states had the right to overrule federal laws that conflict with their own.
Descriptive Statements:
- Examine the settlement of the trans-Mississippi West, including the mining, ranching, and farming frontiers; the impact of technological developments (e.g., the telegraph, the railroad, barbed wire); and the effects of expanding settlement on Native American peoples.
- Analyze the growth of the industrial economy, including the rise and consolidation of industrial and financial empires, the results of technological and managerial innovations, and the conflict between industrial capitalism and organized labor.
- Examine changing patterns of immigration to the United States during the period and the impact of immigration and urbanization on U.S. society.
- Analyze the rise of the New South; the disfranchisement and segregation of African Americans; and the efforts of African Americans such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Ida B. Wells to overcome the social, economic, and political obstacles that confronted them.
- Examine the emergence of the United States as a world power, including the Spanish-American War, U.S. intervention in Asia and Latin America, and key issues in the debate over U.S. expansionism.
- Examine the origins, goals, strategies, and influence of the Progressive movement, including opposition to political and corporate abuses of power, the Progressive emphasis on science and efficiency, and major governmental and legislative reforms.
- Analyze the causes and consequences of U.S. participation in World War I1, including reasons for U.S. entry into the conflict, the impact of U.S. intervention on the war's outcome, and the effect of the war on U.S. society.
- Examine major events and developments of the 1920s, including the growth of a consumer economy; the Red Scare; Prohibition; the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan; immigration restriction legislation; passage of the Nineteenth Amendment; nonconformity and dissent; the Harlem Renaissance; the presidential administrations of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover; and the causes of the Great Depression.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technological developments from 1877 to 1929.
- Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Sample Item:
The immigration restriction legislation of the 1920s was primarily a response to concerns about which of the following?
- the impact of immigration from Latin America on the U.S. economy
- the consequences of immigration from eastern and southern Asia on U.S. national security
- the effects of immigration from southern and eastern Europe on U.S. culture
- the results of immigration from western Europe on U.S. political life
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
C. This question requires the examinee to examine major social, economic, political, and cultural events and developments of the 1920s. During the 1920s, immigration restrictionists concerned about the preservation of an English-language Protestant culture in the United States focused their resources and energies on halting the massive wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe that had begun during the late nineteenth century.
Descriptive Statements:
- Analyze the causes of the Great Depression, the responses of the Hoover administration and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to economic collapse and social dislocation, the ascendancy of the Democratic Party, and the effects of the Depression on the American people.
- Examine major events and developments related to U.S. participation in World War II2, including prewar isolationism and neutrality, war mobilization, the internment of Japanese Americans, U.S. military and diplomatic strategy, major battles involving U.S. forces, the impact of the war on the U.S. economy and society, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb.
- Analyze major developments in U.S. foreign policy since World War II2, including the doctrine of containment and the domino theory, atomic diplomacy, the Korean and Vietnam wars, U.S. intervention in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, the Cuban missile crisis, the policy of détente, the Camp David Accords, the Iran hostage crisis, the Persian Gulf War, the struggle against international terrorism, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
- Analyze major political events and developments in the United States since 1945, including Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal, Dwight D. Eisenhower's Modern Republicanism, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, Watergate, the decline of liberalism and the rise of the conservative movement, the Iran-Contra scandal, the Clinton impeachment, significant Supreme Court decisions, and important electoral contests of the period.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major economic developments in the United States since 1945, including the postwar economic boom, the construction of the Interstate Highway System, the rise of the Sunbelt, deindustrialization and the shift toward a service economy, the decline of organized labor, Reaganomics, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and economic globalization.
- Analyze major social developments in the United States since 1945, including suburbanization, the baby boom, the expansion of higher education, the emergence of a youth culture, demographic and population shifts, and changing patterns of immigration.
- Examine the aims, activities, strategies, prominent figures, and achievements of the struggle for African American equality, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery bus boycott, civil disobedience, the sit-in movement, the Birmingham and Selma campaigns, the enactments of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Black Power movement.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major social and political movements of the postwar period, including the women's rights movement, the American Indian Movement, the Hispanic rights movement, the Asian American movement, the New Left, the counterculture, the Free Speech movement, the gay liberation movement, and the environmental movement.
- Demonstrate knowledge of major developments in literature, the arts, popular culture, science, and technology in the United States from 1929 to the present.
- Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Sample Item:
Which of the following best describes the significance of the sit-ins of the early 1960s for the civil rights movement?
- They marked the beginnings of widespread student participation in the movement.
- They reflected the growing influence within the movement of the philosophy of Black Power.
- They signaled a shift in movement aims from political goals to economic objectives.
- They represented the end of efforts by the movement to achieve racial equality through peaceful means.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
A. This question requires the examinee to examine the goals, strategies, and achievements of the struggle for African American equality during the post–World War II2 period in the United States. Initiated by four African American students in Greensboro, North Carolina, the sit-in movement of the early 1960s inspired students throughout the country to become more active in the civil rights struggle.
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