Study Guide

Field 051: Social Studies—Historical Perspectives
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

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Objective 0001
Historical Concepts and Perspectives (Standard 1)

1. An ability to analyze multiple causation would be most essential for successfully completing which of the following historical research tasks?

  1. detailing the consequences of Alexander the Great's imperial conquests
  2. assessing the decline of Athenian power and influence beginning in the fifth century BCE
  3. describing hierarchical relationships within ancient Greek society
  4. analyzing the relationship between art and politics in ancient Greek city-states
Answer
Correct Response: B.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of multiple causation of historical events and causal relationships between historical events and developments. An adequate assessment of the decline of Athenian power and influence beginning in the fifth century BCE would require an examination of diverse causal factors such as major economic developments, the effect of war on the Greek city-states, the quality of Athenian leadership following the death of Pericles, and the rise of Macedonia.
Objective 0002
Historical Sources and Research Skills (Standard 2)

2. A historian who is studying the material culture of a seventeenth-century New England community would likely find which of the following sources most useful?

  1. town petitions to the legislature
  2. probate records
  3. manuscripts of ministerial sermons
  4. church covenants
Answer
Correct Response: B.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the uses and limitations of various types of primary sources and secondary sources of historical information. The lists of personal possessions of deceased individuals contained in probate records provide an informative overview of the material culture of seventeenth-century communities.
Objective 0003
Historical Analysis and Interpretation (Standard 3)

3. Read the passage below; then answer the question that follows.

Although the American Revolution left the majority of African Americans in bondage, it did cause significant changes in the cultural climate that had permitted the existence of slavery. Notwithstanding the institution's persistence in some Northern states for decades after the war, it became increasingly clear that most citizens of the region no longer believed that slavery was morally acceptable. These social forces, which made slavery a truly "peculiar institution," isolated Southern planters and created regional differences that would ultimately be resolved on the battlefield of the Civil War.

In which of the following ways could the writer best provide support for the main idea of the passage?

  1. showing how many slaves were actually freed as a consequence of the Revolution
  2. examining the Southern reaction to the abolition of slavery in the North
  3. analyzing the effect of Northern abolition on master-slave relations in the South
  4. comparing statements that Northerners made about slavery before and after the Revolution
Answer
Correct Response: D.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of how to evaluate the nature and adequacy of evidence. In the passage the writer argues that as a result of the American Revolution an increasing number of Northerners came to view slavery as morally unacceptable. The writer could best support this argument by comparing statements that Northerners made about slavery—in letters, diaries, sermons, pamphlets, speeches, newspapers—before and after the Revolution.
Objective 0004
World History (Standard 4)

4. Early African farmers relied heavily on a slash-and-burn system of shifting cultivation in order to:

  1. minimize the damage caused by recurrent floods.
  2. combine farming with nomadic stock raising.
  3. sustain crop production on poor and marginal soils.
  4. increase the variety of crops able to be grown.
Answer
Correct Response: C.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the origins, structures, and development of early civilizations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas to 500 CE. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a technique in which farmers burn off the vegetation of a cultivated area and let it lie fallow for a period of time before cultivating the same area again. The ash produced by burning the vegetation helped, for several years at least, to maintain the fertility of poor and marginal soils that early African farmers would otherwise have had to abandon after a single growing season.
Objective 0004
World History (Standard 4)

5. Tokugawa efforts to create a unified Japanese nation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries largely focused on initiatives designed to:

  1. control the actions of provincial lords.
  2. regulate merchant activity.
  3. reduce inequities in income and wealth.
  4. reduce reliance on foreign imports.
Answer
Correct Response: A.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of continuity and change in Asian civilizations, 1300–1800 CE. In an effort to secure their rule and eliminate potential opposition to their centralizing initiatives, Tokugawa shoguns sought to control the actions of provincial lords through the creation of an "alternative attendance system" that required local rulers to spend every other year in their home domain or at the shogun's capital at Edo. Because the lords' families lived permanently in Edo, provincial leaders had a strong incentive to remain loyal during periods when they resided outside the capital.
Objective 0004
World History (Standard 4)

6. Which of the following excerpts from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen best illustrates how the French Revolution represented a reaction to the persistence of feudal conditions in French society?

  1. "All that is not prohibited by law cannot be forbidden, and no one can be forced to do anything that it does not ordain."
  2. "Property being a sacred and inviolable right, no one can be deprived of it except when public necessity, lawfully ascertained, clearly demands it, and then only upon condition of a just and previous indemnification."
  3. "For the maintenance of a public force, and for the expenses of administration, a common contribution is essential."
  4. "All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admissible to all dignities, places, and public employments according to their capacity, and without distinctions other than their virtue and talents."
Answer
Correct Response: D.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the causes of the French revolution. The creation of a government headed by people chosen "without distinctions other than their virtues and talents" underscores the insistence of revolutionary leaders that France would no longer recognize feudal rights and privileges derived from birth into a noble family.
Objective 0004
World History (Standard 4)

7. Which of the following developments of the interwar period was a direct consequence of tensions arising from opposition to the Treaty of Versailles?

  1. the rise of fascism in Germany
  2. communist expansion in Eastern Europe
  3. the Spanish Civil War
  4. Japanese aggression in East Asia
Answer
Correct Response: A.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the origins and consequences of World War I and major political, economic, social, and cultural developments of the interwar period. In their rise to power, German fascists attracted support from nationalist-minded citizens by attacking provisions of the Versailles Treaty that blamed World War I on German aggression, took land from Germany, forced Germany to pay reparations, and placed strict limits on the size of the German military.
Objective 0005
U.S. History (Standard 5)

8. A major difference between pre-Columbian Native American groups of California and the Eastern Woodlands was that indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands:

  1. exhibited a greater degree of cultural diversity.
  2. developed more complex forms of political organization.
  3. lived in more densely populated communities.
  4. developed less elaborate forms of social organization.
Answer
Correct Response: B.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of characteristics of Native American cultures prior to European settlement. The more numerous pre-Columbian Native American groups of California never created forms of political organization comparable to the confederacies established by the Iroquois and other indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands.
Objective 0005
U.S. History (Standard 5)

9. Which of the following provisions of the Articles of Confederation best illustrates why proponents of the U.S. Constitution objected to the government established by the Articles?

  1. "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."
  2. "Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these states to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other state."
  3. "All . . . debts contracted by, or under the authority of congress, before the assembling of the united states, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the united states."
  4. "No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the united states in congress assembled."
Answer
Correct Response: A.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the consequences of the American Revolution and the creation of national and state governments. According to its critics, a major shortcoming of the Articles of Confederation was that the government it created consisted of little more than a loose alliance of states in which "[e]ach state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence." Proponents of the U.S. Constitution wanted to replace this structure with a unified central government capable of mobilizing the nation's resources to address the major challenges facing the new country.
Objective 0005
U.S. History (Standard 5)

10. Frederick Douglass most influenced the struggle to abolish slavery in the United States through his ability to:

  1. resolve conflicts between various factions within the abolitionist movement.
  2. organize working-class support for abolitionism.
  3. draft and argue legal briefs that challenged the constitutionality of slavery.
  4. speak and write about the injustice of human bondage.
Answer
Correct Response: D.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the growth of slavery and the effort to reform U.S. society. A former slave and one of the most accomplished orators of his day, Douglass spoke eloquently in numerous forums throughout the North during the antebellum period about the injustices of human bondage. He was also author of the best-selling Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) and editor of the North Star, an antislavery newspaper published in Rochester, New York.
Objective 0005
U.S. History (Standard 5)

11. Which of the following responses best describes a major weakness of the U.S. economy during the 1920s?

  1. a growing reliance on foreign imports
  2. a decline in labor productivity
  3. a weak banking system with limited financial reserves
  4. a failure to aggressively adopt major technological innovations
Answer
Correct Response: C.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the economic circumstances that brought on the Great Depression. The U.S. banking system of the 1920s contained a large number of small, independent institutions that lacked the reserves needed to withstand a major jolt to the economy. When one or several of these banks failed, the assets of other banks with which they did business were also put in jeopardy. This created a situation in which a number of small bank failures could produce a chain reaction that reverberated throughout the entire financial system.
Objective 0005
U.S. History (Standard 5)

12. Which of the following responses best describes a shared goal of the Chicano Movement and American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s?

  1. to reclaim lands taken from Mexican Americans and Native Americans
  2. to lobby Congress for the passage of laws to reduce poverty in Mexican American and Native American communities
  3. to elect Mexican Americans and Native Americans to public office
  4. to celebrate the cultural identity of Mexican Americans and Native Americans
Answer
Correct Response: D.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of political, social, economic, and cultural developments in U.S. society during the second half of the twentieth century. As part of their effort to advance the social, political, and economic self-determination of Mexican Americans and Native Americans, the Chicano Movement and American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s each engaged in a variety of activities that celebrated the history, traditions, and cultural identity of the groups they represented.
Objective 0006
Indiana History (Standard 6)

13. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 most influenced the development of the region by:

  1. establishing procedures and guidelines for the creation of governments in the Northwest Territory.
  2. making arrangements for an equitable division of land between Native Americans and white settlers in the Northwest Territory.
  3. establishing rules for the conduct of trade between Canada and the Northwest Territory.
  4. making possible the integration of the Northwest Territory into the national economy.
Answer
Correct Response: A.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of major political and economic developments in Indiana prior to statehood. In addition to creating the Northwest Territory, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided for the appointment of a territorial governor and the establishment of legislatures in the five territories that would ultimately become the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Objective 0006
Indiana History (Standard 6)

14. Which of the following developments posed the greatest challenge to the Indiana economy during the 1970s and 1980s?

  1. reduced prices for agricultural goods in international markets
  2. declines in the housing market in major urban centers of the state
  3. mounting competitive pressures on durable goods producers
  4. high taxes and increased government regulation of business
Answer
Correct Response: C.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of major economic developments and changes in Indiana since World War II. During the post-World War II period, the production and sale of durable goods—home appliances, automobiles, furniture, etc.—accounted for a much higher proportion of economic activity in Indiana than in many other parts of the country. Intensified global competition in these markets during and after the 1970s placed considerable pressure on Indiana firms, a number of which reduced operations or shut down altogether.
Objective 0007
History Instruction and Assessment (Standard 7)

15. A high school social studies teacher could best help students understand the importance of considering multiple perspectives in historical analysis by organizing a class discussion on which of the following topics?

  1. the emergence of the concept of kingship as the basis of social organization
  2. the various criteria that have been used to define the term civilization
  3. the types of evidence scholars use to reconstruct the earliest human communities
  4. the development of social institutions in the early river valley civilizations
Answer
Correct Response: B.
This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of instructional strategies for promoting student understanding of historical concepts and skills. Throughout history, different societies have defined the term civilization in different ways. Because an examination of the criteria that various societies have used to define civilization reveals much about those societies, a discussion of such criteria would serve as a particularly effective way of helping students understand the importance of considering multiple perspectives in historical analysis.