Strategies for the Multiple Choice Questions

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Strategies for the Multiple Choice Questions

• Identification Questions
• Analysis Questions
• Visual Interpretation
• Quotations
• Cross-chronological and Except Questions
• Exam organization, Pacing, and Guessing

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Identification Questions

• The most common type (between 40-50 of the test)
• You may be asked to identify, for example
• The accomplishment of a historical figure
• A major feature of an intellectual movement
• The result of a treaty

Most Basic
More Complex
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Identification Questions

• Often you will find 2-3 that you can eliminate
  quickly because they are
• (1) out of the time period
• (2) involve absolute phrases (never, always,
  complete), or
• (3) have little to do with the question stem

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Identification Questions

• What was the immediate result of WWI?
• (A) a return to normalcy and peace across Europe
• (B) the breakup of the Soviet Union
• (C) complete acceptance of peace terms by
  defeated powers
• (D) dissolution of empires in Central and Eastern
  Europe
• (E) a United States boycott of the peace
  conference

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Analysis Questions

• To assess your powers of historical understanding
  (about 20 of Section I)
• Somewhat more complex than identification
• They ask you to make a conclusion or judgment

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Analysis Questions

• Often will ask about the impact of a movement or
  judge the most important cause of a political
  event
• May involve finding the most appropriate
  characterization of something
• A political leaders policies
• The features of a cultural movement
• How population changed over time

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Analysis Questions

• Which of the following best characterizes the
  Enlightenment attitude toward organized religion?
• (A) a desire to eliminate all public religious
  practice
• (B) skepticism towards religious dogmatism
• (C) acceptance of its important role in morality
• (D) rejection of religious toleration for
  minority faiths
• (E) celebration of the progressive role of the
  Catholic clergy

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Visual Interpretation

• Here is where your increased attention to the
  visual supplements in your text pays off (about
  20 of the questions)
• You are provided with a visual stimulus
• Map, graph, chart, political cartoon, painting
• The picture is not the purpose itself
• Most likely represents an important trend,
  conflict, or issue covered in the course

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Cheap Clothing Punch Magazine

• This 19th century British cartoon is a commentary
  on which of the following?
• Dangerous working conditions in textile factories
• The improved standard of living produced by
  inexpensive cloth
• The injustice of denying the working class the
  vote
• British dominance of the Indian textile industry
• The negative impact of a free trade treaty with
  France

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Quotations

• 5-10 of the questions
• Interpret the quote or put it into context
• It will represent some significant idea or
  development of the course
• Look for a significant phrase that might be
  associated with a thinker or movement
• i.e. class struggle ?

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Blood mixture and the resultant drop in the
racial level is the sole cause of the dying out
of old cultures for men do not perish as a
result of lost wars, but by the loss of that
force of resistance which is contained only in
pure blood.

• The quote above represents which of the following
  writers and contexts?
• (A) Darwins concern for the survival of the
  fittest
• (B) Charles Vs effort to combat the Ottoman
  Turks
• (C) Hitlers call for a racially pure Germany
• (D) Pasteurs explanation of the germ theory of
  disease
• (E) Mazzinis condemnation of foreign rule of
  Italy

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Cross Chronological and Except Questions

• Both are rare but do comprise of 5-10 of the
  overall Multiple Choice Section
• Cross-chronological questions where choices
  range across time periods
• You are expected to have a broad enough grasp to
  recognize the trend

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Cross Chronological

• In which two consecutive centuries did Europe
  experience first a decrease in population, and
  then in the next a steady population increase?
• (A) Fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• (B) Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
• (C) Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries
• (D) Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries
• (E) Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries

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Except Question

• All of the following helped cause the French
  Revolution EXCEPT
• (A) a government budget crisis that the king was
  unable to resolve
• (B) criticism by Enlightenment philosophes of the
  inequality of the Old Regime
• (C) a subsistence crisis that led to high bread
  prices
• (D) increased aristocratic opposition to royal
  aboslutism
• (E) the threat of foreign invasion by a
  British-led alliance

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