UNITED STATES HISTORY

SECTION II

Total Time – 1 hour, 35 minutes

Question 1 (Document-Based Question)

Suggested Reading period: 15 minutes

Suggested writing period: 45 minutes

Directions: Question 1 is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise. You are advised to spend 15 minutes reading and planning and 45 minutes writing your answer.

Write your responses on the lined pages that follow the question.

In your response you should do the following:

· State a relevant thesis that directly addresses all parts of the question.

· Support the thesis or a relevant argument with evidence from all, or all but one, of the documents.

· Incorporate analysis of all, or all but one, of the documents into your argument.

· Focus your analysis of each document on at least one of the following: intended audience, purpose, historical context, and/or point of view.

· Support your argument with analysis of historical examples outside the documents.

· Connect historical phenomena relevant to your argument to broader events or processes.

· Synthesize the elements above into a persuasive essay that extends your argument, connects it to a different historical context, or accounts for contradictory evidence on the topic.

1. Evaluate the major causes and consequences of the Cold War fears of the American people between 1948-1961.

Document 1

Document 2

Document 3

Document 4

Source: Life magazine, May 1955

Document 5

Source: Saturday Evening Post, October 1956.

On last June twenty-ninth, with President Eisenhower’s signature, one of the most astounding pieces of legislation in history quietly became a law. Public Law 627 represents such a monumental conception of national public works that its accomplishment will literally dwarf any previous work of man…That new title – the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways – tells the story of the road network, which will receive the major portion of the brave new effort to get this country out of its national traffic jam. The Interstate System…is the 40,000-mile network of existing roads which comprise our trunkline highways; it connects 209 of the 237 cities having a population of 50,000 or more and serves the country’s principal industrial and defense areas.

Document 6

Source: U.S. News and World Report, December 1957.

Document 7

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Department of Commerce.

The end.