US History Mid-Term Review Sheet

SSUSH1 The student will describe European settlement in North America during the 17th century.

  1. What were the religious beliefs in the Middle colonies?
  2. What was the House of Burgesses? Why was it important?
  3. What cash-crop did Virginia grow to help it become a successful colony?
  4. Why did the location of Jamestown in a warm, swampy area negatively impact the colonists who settled there?
  5. Which geographical region in colonial North America was best known for its cold climate and strong Puritan population?

SSUSH2 The student will trace the ways that the economy and society of British North America developed.

  1. What was the Triangular Trade and how did it impact the colonies?
  2. What was the economic system of mercantilism? What role did slavery play in this system?
  3. Why were slaves brought from Africa to be used on plantations in North and South America?
  4. Slavery and indentured servitude were both forms of labor which were used in colonial America. How were indentured servants different from slaves?
  5. What is the Middle Passage?

SSUSH3 The student will explain the primary causes of the American Revolution.

  1. What were the Intolerable Acts?
  2. What was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and how did it impact the colonists?
  3. What was the impact of the French & Indian War on the American colonists?
  4. Why were the colonists upset about taxation without representation?
  5. The Intolerable Acts were a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in response to which event?
  6. What was the role of the Committees of Correspondence which formed in the years before the American Revolution?

SSUSH4 The student will identify the ideological, military, and diplomatic aspects of the American Revolution.

  1. What was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence? Why was it written? Who wrote it?
  2. How was fighting the American Revolution on American soil an advantage to the Continental army?
  3. What was the significance of the Treaty of Paris of 1783?
  4. What role did General Cornwallis play in the American Revolution?
  5. What role did France play in the American Revolution?
  1. Who was the Marquis de Lafayette and what role did he play in the Revolutionary War?
  2. What was the biggest challenge faced by George Washington when he agreed to lead the Continental Army?

SSUSH5 The student will explain specific events and key ideas that brought about the adoption and implementation of the United States Constitution.

  1. How did Shay’s Rebellion impact the Articles of Confederation?
  2. Describe the Federalist Party.
  3. What is the principle of "separation of powers" in the U.S. Constitution? What are some examples?
  1. Who were the Anti-Federalists and why did they argue in favor of the Bill of Rights?
  2. What is the purpose of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution? What do they protect?
  3. Why did the Whiskey Rebellion occur in western Pennsylvania in 1794?
  4. What did members of the Democratic-Republican Party believe in?

SSUSH6 The student will analyze the impact of territorial expansion and population growth and the impact of this growth in the early decades of the new nation.

  1. Which battle of the War of 1812 occurred after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed?
  2. In the War of 1812, the United States was waging war against which of the following countries?
  3. What was the central purpose of the Monroe Doctrine?
  4. What was the Articles of Confederation
  5. What economic problems did the United States face during the 1790s?
  6. What is “impressment” and how did it help lead to the War of 1812?
  7. Which country did the United States purchase the Louisiana Territory from? Why was this purchase significant for the US?
  8. How did Andrew Jackson’s presidency help to extend suffrage to landless white males?

SSUSH7 Students will explain the process of economic growth, its regional and national impact in the first half of the 19th century, and the different responses to it.

  1. How did the invention of the cotton gin contribute to an increase in cotton production?
  2. What was the Seneca Falls Convention?
  3. What is Manifest Destiny? How did it impact westward expansion?
  4. What was the Indian Removal Act? How did impact Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River?
  5. What was the Trail of Tears?
  6. Who was Elizabeth Cady Stanton and what was her role in the Women’s Rights movement?
  7. What was the American Temperance Society? What was its major goal?
  8. Horace Mann is known primarily for his efforts in which reform movement?

SSUSH8 The student will explain the relationship between growing north-south divisions and westward expansion.

  1. Which treaty ended the Mexican War?
  2. What was the Missouri Compromise? What did it say about the issue of slavery?
  3. What was the Compromise of 1850? What U.S. territory did it deal with? How did the U.S. gain this territory?
  1. Who was Frederick Douglass?
  2. What was the Wilmot Proviso?
  3. What impact did the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin have on the anti-slavery movement?
  4. What was the Fugitive Slave Act? What were its major provisions?
  5. How did railroads encourage westward expansion?
  6. How did the geography of the South impact the growth of slavery?
  7. Who was Harriet Tubman and what was her role in the Underground Railroad?

SSUSH9 The student will identify key events, issues, and individuals relating to the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War.

  1. What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854? What did it say about the issue of slavery?
  2. In the 1850s, why was the territory of Kansas known as "Bleeding Kansas?"
  3. Who was the president of the Confederacy?
  4. Which Union general accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House?
  5. What impact did the election of Abraham Lincoln play in the Southern states seceding from the Union?
  6. Where did the first battle of the Civil War take place?
  7. Why was the Battle of Vicksburg an important victory for the Union?
  8. What was the Emancipation Proclamation? What did it do? Who issued it?
  9. On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. What was John Brown's goal?
  10. What type of economy existed in the South?
  11. Who was Dred Scott and how did the Supreme Court rule when he sued for his freedom?
  12. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 granted land to railroad companies to build the transcontinental railroad. What was the effect of the railroads selling this land?
  13. Who was General William Tecumseh Sherman and what was his role in the Battle of Atlanta?

SSUSH10 The student will identify legal, political, and social dimensions of Reconstruction.

  1. Describe the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
  2. What did the United States acquire in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853?
  3. After the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau was set up primarily to help which group of people?
  4. What were the Reconstruction Acts? What were the major provisions in these Acts?
  5. What was the primary goal of the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction period?
  6. Who were the Radical Republicans? How did they want to treat the South during Reconstruction?

SSUSH11 The student will describe the economic, social, and geographic impact of the growth of big business and technological innovations after Reconstruction.

  1. What is a monopoly?
  2. What is a trust?
  3. What was the Standard Oil Company?
  4. Who was John D. Rockefeller?

SSUSH12 The student will analyze important consequences of American industrial growth.

  1. The Pullman Strike of 1894 had the greatest effect on which industry?
  2. What was the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890?
  3. Where did immigrants working on the Transcontinental Railroad mainly come from?
  4. What were the factory conditions that gave rise to labor unions?
  5. Who was Samuel Gompers?
  6. What was the American Federation of Labor?
  7. What tactics did labor unions employ to gain better conditions in factories?
  8. Why was Ellis Island established in 1892?

SSUSH13 The student will identify major efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era.

  1. What were the goals of the Progressive Movement? What actions did Progressives take to achieve these goals?
  2. What were Jim Crow Laws?
  3. What is the meaning of the principle of “separate but equal?” Which Supreme Court case upheld this principle?
  4. Who was Jane Addams?
  5. What type of living conditions did people living in tenements in crowded cities face?
  6. What was Hull House?
  7. What was the impact of muckraker journalist Ida Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company?
  8. What was the result of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle? Why did he write it?
  9. What is meant by the term “muckraker?”
  10. How did W.E.B. Dubois want to improve the social and economic situation that existed for African Americans during the early 19th century?
  11. Who was Booker T. Washington and what did he believe African Americans should do to improve their communities?