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Study Guide

Field 009: History
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

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Subarea 1—HISTORICAL CONCEPTS AND SKILLS

Objective 001
Understand historical terms, concepts, sources, and perspectives.

1. Scholars influenced by the Progressive school of historical interpretation would most likely focus on which of the following issues in a study of the U.S. Constitution?

  1. the sources of political ideas contained in the Federalist Papers
  2. the economic interests of delegates to the Constitutional Convention
  3. the powers of the executive branch in the United States
  4. the debate over the Virginia Plan at the Constitutional Convention
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 002
Apply methods for conducting historical investigations and analyzing and interpreting historical information.

2. Which of the following research questions would provide a basis for the most informative and comprehensive study of the causes of the U.S. Civil War?

  1. How did Abraham Lincoln win the 1860 presidential election with less than a majority of the popular vote?
  2. How extensive was northern investment in the South during the prewar period?
  3. What effect did westward expansion have on intersectional relations in the United States during the antebellum period?
  4. What proportion of the southern white population owned slaves before the Civil War?
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.

Subarea 2—WORLD HISTORY

Objective 003
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 1, the beginnings of human society to 4000 BCE; and Era 2, early civilizations and cultures and the emergence of pastoral peoples, 4000 to 1000 BCE.

3. Which of the following best describes the main direction of the migration of Bantu-speaking peoples that began around 500 BCE and lasted for more than a thousand years?

  1. west and north from East Africa
  2. east and south from West Africa
  3. north and west from South Africa
  4. south and east from North Africa
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 004
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 3, classical traditions, world religions, and major empires, 1000 BCE to 300 CE.

4. The power of the Brahmans in early Indian society stemmed mainly from their ability to:

  1. serve as mediators between the gods and humans.
  2. organize labor to feed the Indian people.
  3. forge political coalitions within Indian society.
  4. defend Indian civilization against nomadic invaders.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 005
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 4, expanding and intensified hemispheric interactions, 300 to 1500 CE.

5. Use the map below to answer the question that follows.

The map shows the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. There is a shaded area extending from Eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean. It covers approximately the southern 2 thirds of the land mass in between, excluding the Indian peninsula.

The shaded area on the map best illustrates the territorial extent of the:

  1. Chinese Empire of the eleventh century.
  2. Islamic Empire of the twelfth century.
  3. Mongol Empire of the fourteenth century.
  4. Russian Empire of the fifteenth century.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 007
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 6, an age of global revolutions, eighteenth century to 1914 CE.

6. One can best understand major technical and organizational innovations of the initial phase of the Industrial Revolution by examining technological innovations designed to improve the process of turning:

  1. leather and jute into shoes.
  2. wheat and rye into bread.
  3. coal and iron ore into steel.
  4. cotton and wool into cloth.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 008
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 7, global crisis and achievement, 1900 to 1945 CE.

7. Which of the following best explains how a small regional conflict in the Balkans turned into World War I?

  1. the role of social revolutionaries in European political life
  2. patterns of economic competition between European nations
  3. the operation of the European alliance system
  4. patterns of population movement between European nations
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 009
Understand major events and developments in world history during Era 8, the Cold War and its aftermath, the twentieth century since 1945 CE.

8. Supporters of the bureaucratic authoritarian regimes that emerged in Chile and other Latin American countries during the 1970s and 1980s most often justified such rule as a necessary means to:

  1. create strong, diversified economies.
  2. check the economic and political power of traditional elites.
  3. reduce U.S. influence in the region.
  4. prevent communist takeovers of regional governments.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.

Subarea 3—U.S. HISTORY

Objective 010
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 1, beginnings to 1620 CE; Era 2, colonization and settlement, 1585 to 1763 CE; and Era 3, revolution and the new nation, 1754 to 1800 CE.

9. Bacon's Rebellion best illustrates which of the following sources of conflict in Britain's North American colonies?

  1. disputes between landed elites and poor farmers
  2. disputes over the powers of colonial assemblies
  3. differences between established religions and dissenting sects
  4. differences between port cities and agricultural communities
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 011
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 4, expansion and reform, 1792 to 1861 CE.

10. Which of the following events best illustrates how concern about the expansion of slavery influenced U.S. national politics during the first half of the nineteenth century?

  1. the Missouri Compromise of the early 1820s
  2. the presidential election of 1828
  3. the Nullification Crisis of the early 1830s
  4. the formation of the Whig Party in 1834
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 012
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 5, the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850 to 1877 CE.

11. Which of the following responses best describes a significant long-term political consequence of Reconstruction in the South?

  1. an increase in the power of state governors throughout the region
  2. a reduction in the political power long enjoyed by rural areas in the region
  3. the creation of state political oligarchies controlled by northern investors
  4. the development of a one-party political system in former Confederate states
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 013
Understand major events in U.S. history during Era 6, the development of an industrial, urban, and global United States, 1870 to 1920 CE.

12. Jane Addams was most similar to other Progressive reformers in her belief that:

  1. government had a responsibility to combat poverty and protect the family.
  2. there was no justification for the use of force in human affairs.
  3. racial justice was essential to U.S. democracy.
  4. labor union efforts to improve conditions for workers fulfilled a vital social function.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 014
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 7, the Great Depression and World War II, 1920 to 1945 CE.

13. In which of the following ways did an unequal distribution of wealth most directly contribute to the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930s?

  1. It undermined the stability of the financial sector of the economy.
  2. It encouraged overconsumption of luxury items and expensive imported goods.
  3. It decreased the supply of capital available for investment in new industries.
  4. It reduced the ability of most people to purchase the goods produced by U.S. industries.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 015
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 8, the post–World War II United States, 1945 to 1970 CE.

14. Compared with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Power movement of the 1960s placed greater emphasis on:

  1. organizing protest demonstrations and other forms of nonviolent direct action.
  2. leading African American voter registration campaigns.
  3. mobilizing support through calls for racial pride and separation from white society.
  4. enacting legislation to address African American demands.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 016
Understand major events and developments in U.S. history during Era 8, the post–World War II United States, 1970 to 1989; and Era 9, America in a new global age, 1990 to the present.

15. During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the United States became a more:

  1. economically egalitarian society.
  2. politically liberal society.
  3. philosophically secular society.
  4. ethnically pluralistic society.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.

Subarea 4—INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES

Objective 017
Understand basic geographic concepts and the physical features of the earth.

16. For a geographer studying the impact of globalization since the late twentieth century, which of the following geographic concepts would be most useful?

  1. human systems
  2. movement
  3. interdependence
  4. the world in spatial terms
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 019
Understand basic economic concepts and the relationship between economics and history.

17. One can best distinguish between market economies and mixed economies by examining their:

  1. willingness to engage in international trade.
  2. responses to adverse shifts in the business cycle.
  3. efforts to increase worker productivity.
  4. methods for marketing goods and services.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 020
Understand basic political science concepts and the relationship between political science and history.

18. World War II most directly influenced which of the following changes in global government?

  1. the consolidation of totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union
  2. the decline of European colonial regimes in Asia and Africa
  3. the emergence of Islamic fundamentalist states in the Middle East
  4. the creation of authoritarian governments in South America
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.

Use the passages below from a debate about the Electoral College to answer the two questions that follow.

Passage A

The one exception to a longtime trend toward greater fairness in American democracy is the system used to decide who will occupy the nation's most powerful and important office. I am, of course, referring to the Electoral College, and its blatant violation of the principle of one person, one vote. This curious vestige of eighteenth-century elite fears of widespread popular participation in the electoral process no longer serves any useful purpose—if it ever did. Eliminating it will bolster voter faith in government by guaranteeing that every person's vote is counted in the same way and carries the same weight in presidential elections.

Passage B

Proposals to abolish the Electoral College are, in effect, proposals to abolish the federal principle in U.S. politics. All of our national elective offices are determined by state-based elections, and presidential contests should be no exception. By forcing presidential candidates to develop broad interregional coalitions, the Electoral College produces chief executives who are sensitive to the needs and interests of people in all parts of the country. We are a nation of states, and a system that requires candidates to acknowledge that fact and win states in all regions of the country has much to recommend it and should by all means be preserved.

Objective 021
Understand core democratic values, recognize the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a democratic society, and apply methods for analyzing public policy questions.

19. The positions taken in the passages would be enhanced by linking those positions to which of the following principles of U.S government?

  1. individual liberty and the rule of law
  2. popular sovereignty and federalism
  3. equality of opportunity and ordered government
  4. justice for all and respect for diversity
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.

20. Individuals seeking information about the origins and development of the issue debated in the passages would be best advised to study which of the following documents and periods of U.S. history?

  1. the Articles of Confederation and the Watergate crisis
  2. the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and the Jacksonian Era
  3. the U.S. Constitution and the Progressive Era
  4. the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.