Difference between revisions of "American History Lecture Eight"

Revision as of 15:36, October 28, 2008

We will have our midterm exam next week, which covers everything through Reconstruction. That means Lectures One through Six, but not Lecture Seven. Our exam will consist of about 30 questions (the total will be different for the boys' and girls' tests).

There are three ingredients to success on any exam:

• how much time you spend studying (rather than, for example, wasting time on unproductive activities like television)
• how effective your method of studying is
• how effective your test-taking techniques are during the exam itself (see, for example, the techniques mentioned earlier in this course)

Master all three aspects of exam preparation listed above and you will maximize your score. For some, that will mean scoring at the top of the class; for others, it will mean improving what your score would have been otherwise.

View an exam as a fun challenge, like participating in a contest. Your performance in the race or game depends on your time spent preparing, how effectively you prepared, and how effectively you tried during the contest itself.

If this were a sporting event, then everyone would recognize and honor the winners, just as we do in the Olympics, the World Series, and the Super Bowl. We will also honor the winners (top scorers) with awards. At the end of the class we will also give awards to the most improved students. This friendly competition is intended to bring out the best in everyone, and motivate them to do better than they might otherwise.

If you think it is impossible to know every event in the list at the end of this lecture, we will likely see top scorers on next week's exam who are able to learn nearly every event. A student "who hustles while he waits," as Edison said, can find a ton of extra time for preparing that he did not realize existed before.

Recall how the homeschoolers Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Edison approached the challenges in their life. They saw challenge as opportunity, and gave it their best shot. They knew that success in life is due almost entirely to "perspiration" (work) rather than inborn traits like IQ. Lincoln and Edison would give this exam their best shot, and so can you. Be one of the students who wins an award for scoring among the highest in the class.

Several students have informed me that they will be taking the CLEP American History exam in order to earn college credit. Congratulations to those students already for showing initiative, and hopefully others will consider attempting to earn college credit also.

Midterm Exam

Because several students are taking the CLEP exam, and because it is the best of the College Board exams, we will follow its format. The CLEP exam divides American history into two periods. The first CLEP American history exam covers through Reconstruction (Lectures One through Six, but not Seven), just like our midterm exam. Our midterm exam will follow the CLEP's subject matter breakdown for questions:

35% of questions are on politics, such as the president, Congress and government policy

25% on social developments, such as slavery, utopian communities, religious and reform movements

15% on intellectual and cultural developments, such as books and inventions

15% on foreign policy, such as foreign wars, treaties and diplomacy

10% on economics, such as inflation, taxes, and protective tariffs

In terms of the time period, only 30% of the first CLEP exam (through Reconstruction) is devoted to the beginning of time to 1789. So do not start with that period and burn out before you study the period of 1790 to 1877, where 70% of the questions are from. Do not waste too much time studying exploration, settlement and colonial America! Perhaps only 10% of the CLEP exam (and our exam) will cover that period. Students often make a big mistake in preparation by not allocating their study time properly.

Preparation and Test-Taking Tips

"Time is money" is a famous, and true, saying. The time you spend not making money could have been better spent making money. Wasted time is lost opportunity to make money, or do something else useful, such as charity or prayer. Also, wasted time is often less enjoyable than time spent working on something you believe in.

A concept similar to "time is money" applies to studying for exams. You will spend a certain amount of time preparing for the midterm exam. Call that total amount of time "x". How you allocate that time to different areas of the overall time period (1500-1877) will make a difference on how well you do on the exam. If you spend 90% of x on the period between 1500 and 1700, then you will do poorly on 90% of the questions, because they will be from the period 1700 to 1877. You would have done far better to spend the 90% of x on the time period that will have 90% of the questions.

How hard you try while taking the exam will also count towards your score. It helps immensely to identify the time period of a history question before trying to answer it. In doing this, it helps to know which presidents served when. You can memorize a list of presidents if you prefer. Or maybe you can figure it out from what you learned in the lectures. Test yourself: who was president in 1842?^[1] Who was the president in 1826?^[2]

There will be several cartoons on the exam. Realize that cartoons are a way for someone to describe facts with a point of view, in order to make a political statement. The cartoonist uses caricatures and draws situations in order to express a point of view. The key to deciphering cartoons is to pay close attention to detail, to pick up all the clues.

Many students make the mistake of answering a cartoon question too quickly. A cartoon is a mystery, like an unsolved crime. As soon as a cop arrives on a crime scene, he does not jump to a conclusion about who committed the crime. He gathers all the evidence. He considers possibilities. He wants an explanation that fits all the facts. He looks for a motive. Approach cartoons the same way.

More generally, look for a purpose to every question. Develop a sense or "ear" for historical purpose in these exams. Prefer an answer choice that adds historical meaning and purpose to a question.

Often there are maps to read on history exams, and here is a tip for them: before the Civil War there was no West Virginia. If you see West Virginia on a map, then it was after the Civil War started.

Above all, understand a question before trying to answer it!

Tip on Organizing the Material

We have covered a great deal of material spanning hundreds of years. We need to try to organize all these facts in our mind somehow. Develop a frame of reference to do this. You can choose whatever frame of reference you like. For me, my frame of reference in remembering each president is to think about how conservative he was. Every few decades we have a conservative president:

1788 – George Washington
1816 – James Monroe
1884 – Grover Cleveland (a conservative Democrat who was pro-gold, anti-union, and anti-government-spending)
1920 – Warren Harding
1980 – Ronald Reagan

Then I fill in the other presidents in between, with reasons why they were not so conservative.

For example, Thomas Jefferson was not particularly conservative because he was personally opposed to religion in government, unsuccessfully fought the Tripoli War, continued some of Alexander Hamilton's big government programs (like a national bank), and imposed the Embargo Act against trade with Europe. You may find this approach helpful in organizing and remembering all of American History since George Washington. Or perhaps you have your own approach for keeping the presidents straight, and organizing historical events. The point is to find something that works for you, and then use it to master the material.

Self-Motivation

A key part of success on an exam -- and in life -- is learning how to motivate yourself. The top scores on the midterm exam will probably not be by students who like history the most. It will likely be by students who motivate themselves the best in order to succeed.

We saw an example of motivation in connection with the original Jamestown settlement in 1607. At first, nobody wanted to work, and the settlement was failing. Grown men were spending the afternoons having games of bowling rather than working.

Then John Smith arrived, and he had a simple means of motivation: those who do not work, do not eat. Do you think people started working then? Of course. And they were much happier and healthier for it.

Sometimes adults still use that motivation of putting off meals until work is finished. But there are other effective motivational techniques also. Take something you enjoy, such as watching a sports game, and deprive yourself of it until you finish your work. You will enjoy the game better that way. Or, as many successful adults do, learn to reward yourself for hard work.

Key Terms Through Reconstruction

Listed below are the key terms for the first half of American history (through Reconstruction). The highlighted terms are the most important, and the ones for students to focus on first. The non-highlighted terms are more for the students in the "honors" portion of this course. Any of these terms may appear on the exams in this course. Several of our students are already planning to take the CLEP exam, and anyone doing that should know as many of these terms as possible.

The list is not as daunting as it appears. Homeschoolers who win the spelling bees memorize the entire dictionary, which is tens of thousands of words. This list is only about 321 terms. A homeschooler like Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Edison would diligently memorize and know the meaning of all the terms on this list, not because they are smarter, but because they believed in trying their best. You can try your best -- everyone can -- and you find lots of time for this that is otherwise wasted.

This chart can be used effectively to quiz yourself. Pick out any term, and try to identify its time period and who was president. Does the term refer to foreign policy (e.g., dealings with a foreign country) or domestic policy (e.g., an issue internal to the United States)? Even if you don't recall immediately the meaning of the term, try to figure it out based on what you do know.

Quizzing yourself in this manner will both improve your test-taking skills, and identify for yourself what you need to study more. Use the short descriptions for these terms that will be handed out in class (and which is available by email - contact me if you need a copy), or refer back to the lectures and the model answers.

As in baseball and in sales in business, simply try to improve your percentages with these terms. If you know only 10%, try to improve that to 40%. If you know 50%, then try to improve that to 75%. If you know 70%, then strive for 90%. Just as a batter in baseball should not be discourage by failing 2 out of 3 times to bat, you should not be discouraged by low initial percentages on this key term list. Simply try to improve your percentages. With effort, you'll amaze yourself at how much better you can become. Your classmates will be working hard on this, and do not let them pass you up!

One approach to improving your knowledge of these key terms is simply to type or write out short descriptions of each one. There are only 321 terms. If you took 2 minutes for each one that you did not know, then it would take you only 1 hour to complete 30 that you did not know. In one day you could cover nearly the entire list, and you would not like forget them for a long, long time. Typing or writing out the meaning of something in one's own words has the effect of really burning it into one's memory! I still recall lines from Shakespeare that I wrote out by hand when I was in the eighth grade!

Our first through sixth lectures should have covered all of of the following terms, except the lectures did miss the Newburgh Conspiracy (or Address). That was a plot among officers of the Continental Army (the Patriots fighting for the Americans in the Revolutionary War) to hold a military coup and establish martial law in order to obtain back pay that was owed to them by Congress for their military service. The plot came to a climax when they angrily met on March 15, 1783, and were surprised by an unexpected appearance by George Washington. He gave a short speech, but the officers were still still angry, and lacking in the respect that they usually gave to their esteemed leader. Washington then pulled a letter from his pocket from a member of Second Continental Congress. But Washington was unable to read the letter without his reading glasses, and in a miraculous moment of sincere emotion, declared, "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." Many of the officers were suddenly moved to tears in the realization that Washington, like themselves, had sacrificed much for the country. The officers left satisfied and would abide by Congress's own timetable for paying them.

The Newburgh Conspiracy is a good story. But develop a sensitivity or "ear" for the historical significance of this story. Why is this event important in the history of our nation? The answer is this: this event confirmed civilian authority or control over the military. Congress, a civilian authority, decides if and when to pay the soldiers. The soldiers have the guns, but they must submit to the civilian authority of Congress, as established by the above event

1. ↑ John Tyler
2. ↑ John Quincy Adams