American History Lecture Eight

Lecture - Questions - Student Answers

Next week: 30-question test, roughly broken down as follows: 10 questions political, 5 questions economic, 5 questions social, 5 questions intellectual and 5 questions foreign policy.

Know your list of presidents, by memorizing the list and counting forward. For example, who was 10th President? (Count forward from Washington until you reach John Tyler.) Who was the president in 1826? (John Quincy Adams) Best tip of all: understand each question before trying to answer it. That is essential.

Cartoons: a combination of facts and argument by the cartoonist. He uses caricatures to express a point of view. The key to deciphering cartoons is to have attention to detail, to pick up all the clues.

History exams are weighted by importance, and a big mistake in preparation is to spend too much time on an obscure time period or issue. Only one third of the first CLEP exam (through Reconstruction) is devoted to the beginning of time to 1789. So don't start with that period and burn out before you reach 1790 to 1877, where two-thirds of the questions will come from.

"Time is money" is a famous, and true, saying. The time you spend not making money, or making little money, could be spent making more money. Lost time is lost opportunity to make money, or do something else useful, such as charity or prayer.

You will spend a certain amount of time preparing for the midterm exam. Call that amount of time "x". How you allocate that time to different areas of 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.

Why did the Republicans win the presidency every time between Andrew Johnson and World War I, except for Grover Cleveland’s victories? Because the Republicans would “wave the bloody shirt,” which means reminding the voters of how the Democrats sided with the South during the Civil War.

Debate: “spoils system,” which gave the victor (the President) the “spoils” (numerous appointments to easy government jobs for his supporters). Civil service reform ended the spoils system for most federal government jobs in 1883. But Jared argued persuasively that the President should be able to fire all the workers who were hired by his predecessor. After all, didn’t the voters want a change in how government ran things?

Reading maps: before Civil War there was no West Virginia. If you see West Virginia on a map, then it was after the Civil War started.

Three ingredients to a test score:

• time spent studying
• how effective your method of studying is
• how clever you are in taking the exam

On a 30 question exam, each of the above categories is worth a few more correct answers. Add them up and you can boost your score by 6 points or more on a 30-question exam, or 100 points or more on the SAT II.

I will give a prize to the student who improves the most by the end of class. What matters most is how well you can do at the end.

Consider the cartoon question on the midterm exam. Most students answered it too quickly. A cartoon is a mystery, like an unsolved crime. As soon as a cop arrives on a crime scene, he doesn’t 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.

The model answers explain this question and the others.

More generally, look for a purpose to a question, particularly the cartoons. Develop a sense of historical purpose in these exams. Prefer an answer choice that adds meaning and purpose to a question.

Be sure to go over your exam and understand why you missed your answers. Was it due to lack of time spent studying? Was it due to lack of effectiveness in how you study, such not enough quizzing of yourself? Or the problem during the test itself, when you had the knowledge but approach the question poorly?

One more exam-taking tip: identify the time period of a history question before trying to answer it.

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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 conservative because he bought new territory, engaged in the Tripoli War, continued Hamilton’s programs and imposed the Embargo Act against trade with Europe. You may find this approach helpful in remembering all of American History since George Washington.

Key Terms Through Reconstruction

American Indians	Thomas Paine/Common Sense	Utopian communities
Meso-America	Valley Forge	Examples of Utopian groups
Europe: Crusades	Franco-American Alliance	Women's Rights/Seneca Falls
Christopher Columbus	Declaration of Independence	Shakers
Treaty of Tordesillas	Articles of Confederation	William Lloyd Garrison
John Cabot	Treaty of Paris	American Antislavery Society
Ponce de Leon	Newburgh Addresses (or Conspiracy)	Horace Mann/Public Education
Hernando Cortes	Land Ordinance of 1785	Liberty Party
St. Augustine, Florida	Northwest Ordinance of 1787	Mormon Church
Santa Fe, New Mexico	Annapolis Convention	Emerson and Thoreau
League of Iroquois	Shay's Rebellion	Commonwealth v. Hunt
Sir Humphrey Gilbert	Constitutional Convention of 1787	Seventh Day Adventist Church
Roanoke Island (""Lost Colony")	Virginia Plan	Elizabeth Blackwell
Spanish Florida	New Jersey Plan	Oregon Trail
Spanish Armada	Connecticut Plan	Texas secedes from Mexico
Samuel de Champlain	bill of attainder	Gag rule
Virginia Company	Federalist Papers	John Tyler
Jamestown (Virginia)	bicameral legislature	Elijah Lovejoy
economic system of Jamestown	George Washington	Webster-Ashburton Treaty
"Starving time"	Judiciary Act of 1789	James Polk
Henry Hudson	full ratification of Constitution	Manifest Destiny
House of Burgesses	Hamilton's report on the public credit	Texas enters Union
Jamestown's "cash crop"	Hamilton's report on manufacturers	Slidell Mission
First slaves	First Bank of the United States	Oregon Treaty
Plymouth Bay Colony	Bill of Rights	Wilmot Proviso
Mayflower Compact	cotton gin	Iowa enters Union
economic system of Plymouth, Mass.	federal assumption of state debts	Mexican War
difference between English & Spanish	Washington's Neutrality Proclamation	Spot Resolutions
Powhatan Confederacy	Citizen Genet	Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Mercantilism	Jay's Treaty	Barnburners