TEACHER

US HISTORY COLONIZATION

THROUGH

RECONSTRUCTION

Expansion of the

United States

Unit 3

Benchmark

Grade 8

Title of Test: 8th Grade Social Studies Benchmark #4

Testing Window: March 16 to March 27, 2009

Purpose:

The SJSD Assessment team emphasizes the purpose of the SJSD benchmark assessment program is to facilitate and provide information for the following in order to enhance and promote student learning:

  1. Student Achievement -- To produce information about student achievement so that parents/guardians, students and teachers have a baseline against which to monitor academic mastery of the skills and processes set forth within a particular curriculum sequence.
  1. Student Counseling -- To serve as a tool in the counseling and guidance of students for further direction and for specific academic placement.
  1. Instructional Change -- To provide teachers with the information needed to make instructional decisions, plans and changes regarding classroom objectives and program implementation.
  1. School and District Evaluation -- To provide indicators of the progress of the district toward established goals.

Assessment Director:Dr. Laura Nelson

District Subject Coordinator: Robert Nash

SJSD Curriculum Objective and Missouri Grade Level Expectations (GLEs/CLEs)for this benchmark: (Include SJSD curriculum objective-number and words & GLE coding)

3 / EXPANSION
Discover and evaluate the effects of change and innovation on the growth of the United States.
Essential Question:
How does change and innovation affect our lives? / 6 Weeks
3-1 / Westward Expansion
Identify and appraise the United States’ westward expansion.
3-2 / Industrialization:
Measure the impact of Industrialization on the development of the United States.

Show-Me Standards for this benchmark:

Content standards

3a-F / Assess the significance of Westward Expansion including:
Louisiana Purchase
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Missouri Compromise
Texas and the Mexican War
Oregon Territory
California Gold Rush / 3 / 1.6
3a-H / Summarize reform movements such as:
  • Abolitionism
  • Women’s movement
  • Jacksonian Democracy
/ 2 / 1.8
4E / Assess the role of technology in our economy and how our economy has changed from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy / 3 / 1.6

Process standards

1.6Discovering and evaluating patterns and relationships in information, ideas, and structures.

1.8Organizing data, information, and ideas into useful forms (including charts, graphs, outlines) for analysis or presentation.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:

ADMINISTERING:

  1. It is imperative that your students are instructed to follow the answer sheet’s numbering sequence. Please inform your students that numbers 6, 8 and 9 are constructed response questions and they will complete their answer directly on the benchmark assessment, and that you will fill in the answer sheet for these questions after you have graded the constructed response questions.
  1. Please closely monitor students and their progress during and after they have completed the benchmark examine to ensure the answer sheet was properly completed.
  1. If you have a student that is absent, please keep their answer sheet and a copy of the test. When the student returns, please administer the assessment to the student and then forward the answer sheet to the Assessment office downtown.

GRADING:

  1. Please grade your students constructed response questions on numbers 6, 8 and 9. Each question has a scoring guide, an exemplary answer, other possible answers, and instructions how to fill in the students answer sheet. Please see example below.

Point Value / Answer sheet response / Response qualifier
2 points / Mark bubble A / The student correctly identifies two reasons why humans settled in this region.
1 point / Mark bubble B / The student correctly identifies one reason why humans settled in this region
0 points / Mark bubble C / Other
Exemplar / Answer
One main reason humans settled in this region is the fertile soil. Another reason is transportation.
Other possibilities but not limited to. /
  • Trade
  • Farming and or irrigation
  • Fishing or food source

2. Only the responses that are given in the scoring guide may be accepted. If your students are providing additional responses that are not part of the scoring guide, immediately contact your building’s department chair, as well as Robert Nash the district’s social studies coordinator. Once the contacts have been made and the information has been disseminated, a decision will be made in an expedient manner.

Please answer questions 1-6 regarding the industrialization of the United States. (SS 3a-F, 4E, 5E, 5J)
  1. How did the cotton gin change the South? 4E
  1. It increased the costs of growing cotton.
  2. It encouraged Southerners to grow more cotton.
  3. It made the South less dependent on slave labor.
  4. It raised the price that Southerners could get for their cotton.
  1. What impact did Eli Whitney’s “interchangeable parts” have on manufacturing? 4E
  1. It created the 8-hour work day.
  2. It increased manufacturing costs.
  3. It decreased manufacturing costs.
  4. It allowed manufacturers to produce identical items.
  1. How did the improvements in transportation change life in the 1800s? 5E
  1. It created jobs, reduced farm production, and created new markets.
  2. It opened newer markets, reduced slavery, and encouraged national unity.
  3. It increased government revenues, decreased personal travel, and reduced slavery.
  4. It encouraged national unity, opened larger markets, and provided for cheaper travel.
  1. What effect did the immigration of the mid-1800s have on the United States? 3a-F
  1. There were improvements in city sanitation.
  2. There was an Increase in potential land owners.
  3. There was a highly trained labor force for manufacturing.
  4. There were overcrowded cities and a call for strict citizenship requirements.

Use the map to answer questions 5-6.


  1. How did canals affect trade? 5E

A.They provided power for early factories.

B.They improved travel on the Great Lakes.

C.They connected all major cities to one another.

D.They connected western territories to the East coast to help trade.

  1. Using the map, identify and explain one reason how transportation could benefit manufacturing.5J

Point Value / Answer sheet response / Response qualifier
2 points / Mark Bubble A / The response identifies and explains one reason how transportation could benefit manufacturing.
1 point / Mark Bubble B / The response only identifies one reason how transportation could benefit manufacturing
0 points / Mark Bubble C / Other
Exemplar / Answer
The use of rivers could benefit transportation because individuals or companies could easily ship or receive raw materials, finished products or necessary for manufacturing purposes.
Other possibilities but not limited to. – Answer must identify the reason as well as explain their reasoning. / Identifies canals – with an appropriate explanation
Identifies national roads – with an appropriate explanation
Identifies rivers – with an appropriate explanation
Idenitifies large lake or coast city ports – with an appropriate explanation
Please answer questions 7-15 regarding the westward expansion of the United States.
(SS 3a-F, 3a-H, 5H)

7. Why was the Missouri Compromise important to the nation? 3a-F

  1. It allowed Maine to become a slave state.
  2. It ended slavery throughout the United States.
  3. It maintained the balance of power between free states and slave states.
  4. It ended sectionalism and brought a period of national unity to the nation.

Use the passage to answer questions 8.

from a speech to Congress by Andrew Jackson (1829)

The people . . . of every state . . . submit to you the interesting question whether something cannot be done, consistently with the rights of the states, to preserve this much injured race. . . . I suggest, for your consideration the propriety {the reasons} of setting apart an ample {large} district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any state or territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it. . . . But they should be as distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the states they must be subject {held} to their laws.

  1. Which of the following best summarizes what Andrew Jackson said to Congress? 3a-H
  1. Purchase the Louisiana territory and all Native Americans must follow states’ laws.
  2. Create an area west of the Mississippi River solely for the use of Native Americans.
  3. Form an area west of the Mississippi River where Native Americans can form their own states.
  4. Create an area west of the Mississippi River where Native Americans are not allowed to settle.
  1. Which motive was most common among most Americans who went west? 3a-F
  1. They wanted religious freedom.
  2. They already had relatives in the West.
  3. They were escaping trouble in the East.
  4. They wanted to improve their own economic situation.
  1. What was one effect the gold rush had on the population of California? 5H
  1. Miners settled in heavily populated lands.
  2. There was a large number of people who migrated to the region.
  3. The forty-niners were able to purchase land at very low prices.
  4. The population grew at a slower rate than it did in the Southern states.
  1. What did the women's rights movement and the abolitionist movement have in common? 3a-H
  1. Temperance workers did not supporteither movement.
  2. Both movements tried to help a group that was denied rights by law.
  3. Women made up the smallest number of supporters in both movements.
  4. Immigrants made up the largest number of supporters in both movements.

Use the passage to answer questions 12-14.

Excerpts from a letter to Meriwether Lewis from Thomas Jefferson

20 June 1803 - To Meriwether Lewis Esq. Capt. of the 1st regiment of infantry of the U. S. of A.

The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principle stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or another river may offer the most direct and practical water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.

Beginning at the mouth of the Missouri, you will take careful observations of latitude and longitude, at all remarkable points on the river, and especially at the mouths of rivers, at rapids, at islands, and other places and objects distinguished by such natural marks and characters of a durable kind, as that they may with certainty be recognized hereafter…

… You will therefore endeavor {attempt} to make yourself acquainted, with the names of the nations and their numbers; the extent and limits of their possessions; their relations with other tribes of nations; their language, traditions, monuments; their ordinary occupations in agriculture, fishing, hunting, war, arts, and the implements for these; their food, clothing, and domestic accommodations; the diseases prevalent among them, and the remedies they use; moral and physical circumstances which distinguish them from the tribes we know; peculiarities in their laws, customs and dispositions; and articles of commerce they may need or furnish, and to what extent…

…Other objects worthy of notice will be the soil and face of the country, its growth and vegetation, especially those not of the U.S. The animals of the country generally, and especially those not known in the U.S. The remains or accounts of any which may be deemed rare or extinct; the mineral productions of every kind; but more particularly metals, limestone, pit coal, and saltpeter; saline and mineral waters, noting the temperature…

…In all your interactions with the natives, treat them in the most friendly and conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit; make them acquainted with the position, extent, character, peaceable and commercial dispositions of the U.S. of our wish to be neighborly, friendly and useful to them, and of our dispositions to a commercial interactions with them…

…If any of them should wish to have some of their young people brought up with us, and taught such arts that may be useful to them, we will receive, instruct and take care of them. Such a mission, whether of influential chiefs or of young people, would give some security to your own party.

Thomas Jefferson,
President of the United States of America

12.Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to the land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase to

A.negotiate trade agreements with the Indians.

B.negotiate a treaty to buy the area from France.

C.learn about the West and find a river route to the Pacific Ocean.

D.find the starting point of the Red River and possibly spy on Spain.

13. The most likely purpose Jefferson gave Lewis for gathering information about the Indians was to

A.find out where the gold of the West could be found.

B.learn if they knew an all water route to the Pacific Ocean.

C.establish new trading partners with the tribes of the West.

D.discover where rivers, islands, and other geographical features were located.

14. What types of plants and animals did Jefferson want the expedition to gather information about?

A.staple crops that would provide food for the new immigrants

B.plants and animals used to prevent small-pox within the Indian tribes

C.new and previously unknown plants and animals to the United States

D.buffalo herds to serve as a food and shelter source for the Indians of the plains