The mid-term exam will take place on Friday, December 15, between 9:30 and 11:30 AM in BH A53. Bluebooks will be provided. Please bring at least one reliable pen. You will not be permitted to refer to your books or notes.
The exam is designed to take two hours. It will be based on the readings,
lectures, and discussions from the second half of the course. Chronologically,
this means that the exam will cover US history between about 1950 and 1999.
The exam is in two parts.
Part I - Identification
You will be given a list of 15 terms and asked to identify 10 of them in approximately one sentence or series of phrases, explaining what the term means and briefly indicating its importance. These terms will include persons, events, laws, and concepts that we have discussed in the second half of the course.
EXAMPLE:
Term: "Lyndon Baines Johnson"
Identification: US president between 1963 and 1969; initiated Great Society social programs; president who escalated US involvement in Vietnam War; left presidency facing broad public opposition to war in Vietnam.
This section should take about 20 minutes and will be worth 20 percent
of your grade.
Part II ó Essay
You will be given four questions and asked to answer two of them in essay format. These questions will primarily be designed to test your understanding of course material; in contrast to paper assignments, they will emphasize explanation rather than interpretation.
Each essay should take about 40 minutes and will be worth 40 percent of your grade. Keep in mind that each essay is worth more than the identification section and that you should budget your time and energy accordingly.
The following suggestions should give you a sense of what you should study.
2) Be prepared to write about changes in opportunities for women and in how womenís roles have been understood in American culture. How have womenís experiences changed over the past five decades? What can account for these changes?
3) Similarly, be prepared to write about changes in the experiences of African Americans and particularly the civil rights movement. What were the origins of the civil rights movement? How did it operate? What were the divisions within it, especially in terms of goals and tactics? What did it ultimately accomplish?
4) Some of the major political / social movements of the post-war era presented themselves as the "New Left" and the "New Right." You should be prepared to compare them. What did they believe in? How did they react against older political positions? What were the social origins of each movement? How did each impact American life?
5) You might be asked to compare major post-war presidents: Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton (youíll be safe on the recent one-term presidents ó Ford, Carter, and Bush). Think about their administrationsí positions, policies, impact, and importance.
6) The dominant foreign policy issue in the post-war period has been the Cold War (or at least it was between 1946 and 1991). We havenít spent much time on the international aspects of the Cold War, but we have discussed its impact on domestic politics. Be prepared to write about how the Cold War affected the American political scene. How did different presidential administrations "fight" the Cold War? How did anti-communism affect American politics? How did the domestic political impact of the Cold War change over time?