Bias and Perspective Study Guide

Identification: You should be able to identify the significance of major characters and topics from the texts we have read. Significance does not tell mean tell me what they are, it means tell me what they are and why they are important. For example:

  • Bert Quinn: Bert Quinn was the mean man that Jim Donnini was living with in “The Kid Nobody Could Handle.” He believed that the best way to deal with Jim was to yell at him whenever he messed up.

Key Terms: You should be able to identify the following key terms after this unit. There will be no word bank for these terms. You should have a thorough understanding of them.

  • Bias
  • Perspective
  • Precedent
  • 14th Amendment
  • Jim Crow Laws

Open Response: There will be an open response on the test based off of one of your Key Terms listed above.

Vocabulary: The vocabulary words we studied for the stories “The Kid Nobody Could Handle” and “Ryan White: My Own Story” will be on the test. Not all of them, but any of those 15 words could appear.There will be a word bank for these vocabulary words.

Cause and Effect:You will need to understand the relationship between cause and effect of events from a story or article. It will be the exact same setups as we studied and practiced during “Thurgood Marshall: Equal Justice Under Law” except that it will be from a piece of text that you have never read before.

Here is an example of each of the types of questions that will be asked:

First type of question:

Cause: Five separate lawsuits against segregated school systems were defeated in local courts.

Effect: The people who lost appealed their cases to the Supreme Court.

Second type of question:

Directions: Underline the cause in the following sentence and circle the effect.

Question: Snow was predicted so we got the plow put on my uncle’s truck.

Answer: Snow was predicted so we got the plow put on my uncle’s truck.

Generalizations: You should be able to determine whether a generalization is valid or invalid. In addition, you should be able to make an invalid generalization valid. Here is an example:

Valid / Invalid People who lift weights are stronger than people who don’t.

Correction: People who lift weights are usually stronger than people who don’t.