AP United States History AP Review Activity 2: Critical Thinking

Mr. Broach, 2011 - 2012

This assignment is due no later than Friday, November 4, 2011 to Turnitin.com

Instructions: Determine the correct answer for each multiple choice question below. Then, tell why it is the correct answer and why the other options are not correct, using historical examples.

Example format:

Question: Which of the following is a correct statement about the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War?

1. The central government was stronger than any state government.
2. Women received greater political rights.
3. Aristocratic privileges were reduced or eliminated.
4. Slavery was unchallenged.
5. Every state adopted the idea of separation of church and state.

YOUR ANSWER: (This is just one example, your answers do not need to be this long)

Option C is the correct answer because aristocratic privileges were reduced or eliminated through the state constitutions adopted during the Revolutionary war, partly due to the exodus of Loyalists. Options B & D are incorrect because, despite the emphasis on equality, the roles for women and slaves remained mostly unchanged. Option E is incorrect because New England states retained established churches. Option A is incorrect because the original Articles of Confederation designed a weak central government.

Grading: Each question will be scored out of six (6) points: two (2) points for having the correct answer, and four (4) points for having sufficient explanations for the other options (can combine options together).

Total points earned / 60 = % quiz grade (this assignment will count as a take-home quiz and will be weighted double in the quiz grading category)

Critical Thinking Questions:

1. All of the following are characteristics of 17^th Century New England society EXCEPT

a. the average life expectancy was less than thirty years

b. entire families migrated together

c. population growth was largely due to natural reproduction

d. early marriages led to large families

e. children were spaced approximately two years apart

2. The colonists who ultimately embraced the vision of America as an independent nation had in common all of the following characteristics EXCEPT

a. the desire to create an agricultural society.

b. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of royal authority.

c. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of official religion.

d. an unwillingness to subjugate others.

e. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of social hierarchies.

3. The delegates to the 1787 Philadelphia convention who wrote the Constitution hoped to accomplish all of the following EXCEPT

a. create a strong central government.

b. preserve the union.

c. eliminate the fear of anarchy.

d. guarantee property rights.

e. give the vote to the poor.

4. “Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess and the nature of our employment.” In this passage from Letters from An American Farmer, Crevecoeur meant that

a. only English colonists should emigrate to America.

b. government will control the lives of American colonists.

c. immigrants have no control over their destiny.

d. religion determines the quality of colonial experience.

e. emigration to America would transform European colonists.

5. In the Report on Manufacturers

a. Hamilton sought to promote the agrarian sector of the economy.

b. Hamilton and Jefferson promoted an excise tax.

c. Jefferson argued that the nation should develop its infrastructure.

d. Hamilton maintained that a small government would be more efficient.

e. Hamilton supported policies that would protect American industry from foreign competition.

6. The primary goal of President Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory was to

a. prevent the British from claiming it.

b. provide more land for American farmers.

c. strengthen the Democratic-Republican party.

d. demonstrate his belief in strict interpretation of the Constitution.

e. acquire New Orleans and gain control of the Mississippi River.

7. Which of the following best articulates the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine?

a. It reaffirmed the concept of self-determination for all nations.

b. It was used to justify U.S. intervention in Texas.

c. It warned the European powers not to attempt re-colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

d. It became the basis for American isolationism in the early nineteenth century.

e. It established the principle that the United States was justified in excluding European nations from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

8. Which of the following political developments during the age of Jackson did the LEAST to promote democracy?

a. Party nominating conventions

b. “kitchen cabinet”

c. Universal manhood suffrage

d. Popular vote for presidential electors

e. Rotation of officeholders and spoils system

9. Which of the following would an advocate of states’ rights NOT use to support his view?

a. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

b. Nullification

c. The Compact Theory of government

d. South Carolina Exposition and Protest

e. The decisions of the Marshall Court

10. The most significant fact about free African Americans in the North before the Civil War was

a. custom rather than law kept whites and blacks separated.

b. African Americans could not attend public schools.

c. African Americans faced competition in the job market from European immigrants with fewer skills.

d. in most Northern states African Americans could not vote, serve on juries, or testify against a white person.

e. free African Americans were free and not free.

Note about this question: You could effectively argue several of the options. Choose the one that best fits the prompt and tell why you did not choose the others.