Reminders for Final Exam

Reminders for History 161 Final Examination 1. Make sure you read carefully all the information on the review sheet more than once. Familiarize yourself with the procedure to follow when you arrive to take the examination. 2. You will receive a copy of the table of contents for both Major Problems in American History and Discovering the American Past when you arrive to take the examination. 3. Incorporating individual documents to support your interpretation in each essay question is not optional but is a REQUIREMENT. You must demonstrate familiarity with the content of the documents to which you refer, as well as explain how and why each document you use supports and illustrates the points that you are making. 4. To refer to individual documents in MP, you may use the document number and the chapter number, with an abbreviated form of the book title. For example: ?In contrast to those who argued that the federal government should do more to alleviate the hardships of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover maintained that the expansion of government itself posed a threat to the liberty of the American people and risked eroding individual initiative and character (Doc. 1, Ch. 8, MP).? Documents from DAP will not be individually numbered. You should use a short version of the document?s title or identifier as well as the chapter number and an abbreviated form of the book title ? for example, ?Early in the twentieth century, Booker T. Washington urged white investors and businessmen to use black Americans as a labor force rather than relying on immigrants (Atlanta Exposition Address, Ch. 2, DAP).? 5. Remember to articulate a CLEAR THESIS for each of your essays. Make sure that you define the terms in each question. For example, you cannot successfully answer Part I, Question 2 without defining the Cold War. 6. Be careful with your language. Be specific and clear about what you are claiming and who you are talking about. ?Americans were??, ?women believed??, ?Whites thought that?? are almost always generalizations that cannot be sustained.  ?Many Americans at the time were??, ?Significant numbers of young women believed??, ?Middle-class white men often thought that?? are more specific ways to frame your argument. It is important to think about age, education, class, race, gender, region, etc, when answering your question, and to make sure that those specificities are reflected in your use of language as well. 7. Keep the identifications associated with the map items short and to the point. Recall that each item is only worth two points: one for the correct location on the map, the other for the information you provide. Try this trick: pretend you are a party with someone who just saw a documentary about the Vietnam War. The person says to you, ?I was kind of confused by what I saw on that program. You?re taking a history class, right? What are the 2 or 3 most important things I should know about why Vietnam matters in twentieth-century American history?? Or pretend that one of your parents says, ?I thought you were taking U.S. history. Why is the USSR on this review sheet? What?s the connection with modern America?? Pretending to answer questions like that should help you boil those identifications down to their 2 or 3 essentials.