HERE IS THE WAY I LIKE FOR YOU TO STUDY FOR THE U.S. HISTORY PORTION OF THE SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TEST. I AM GOING TO WRITE THE ENTIRE WAY TO STUDY RIGHT HERE. THE ONLY OTHER PART IS TO DO THE PRACTICE TESTS.
STUDY FOR U.S. HISTORY:
Unroll a long sheet of wrapping paper, white side out, on a wall you see each day. Start at one end and begin a time line of U.S. History. Use magic markers, crayons, cut out pictures, stick figures, newspaper graphs, maps, and children's history workbook coloring book figures, flags, cards with explanations, words.
Include as many visual figures and cutouts, stick figures or magic marker emphasis words as you can, moving along chronologically, stick up index cards with details about words, terms, events, people, treaties, laws, trials, with dates of treaties, wars, presidents, assassinations, trends, charts and graphs* (such as increased college attendance after WWII, increased women in the workforce, then back home, baby boomers; then, later, more women in the workforce again, put dates when wars ended (WWI, WWII, Japan attacking Pearl Harbor=USA in Hawaii--put an airplane and harbor and the USA map...).
*Note: Be sure you notice all the entries on every chart, graph, and map--including the title, the information written on the vertical axis, the information on the horizontal axis and any footnotes to the presentation. All standardized tests have maps, charts, and graphs in several content areas. These are certain to add points to your grades.
Tonight, read a graph in one of your textbooks--or in a magazine article. A great source of practice is Chapter 4 in the Princeton 2010 Review for the GED. Consider this: These questions are in history, mathematics, social studies, and even, sometimes, in the reading section. Additionally, they are on every other type of test! Get the graph, map, chart reading out of the way. Be happy and relieved to see them!
This chapter gives examples and reminds how questions (in a variety of content areas) from graphs, charts, and maps ask the test taker to read the graph to find information, to measure, to compare, to analyse, and to project. The question will NOT require the test taker to project an upcoming possibility unless the information is there in the graph to support that projection.
Already a popular speaker in person and on radio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first President ever on television in 1939. Eleanor Roosevelt, his wife, was a key figure during these years. FDR had polio and spent some time in Georgia at Warm Springs for rehabilitation.
As you move from left to right, writing in comments, pasting in photos to help you to visualize the times, notice the periods such as these years when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President and his wife, Eleanor, was a well-known public relations person for his elections and for the progress of people in other areas. So many events happened during this time (World War II, women entering the workplace in greater numbers, the 'baby boom' for people in their 60s now, development of air travel after the air force pilots came back into the work force...). This president served several years and died in office.
As you build your time-line, some people will emerge, including politicians, writers, journalists, civil rights workers, and celebrities. The time line needs color, art, flags (with shapes of the states as they enter the union), fashions, cars, airplanes...(Look at the Dover Publications samplers on line to get paperdoll samples of some of the people on the time line.)
As you reach the 1940s and 1950s, you may talk with some of the older people around you and enjoy some stories with them about what their homes were like, what they did for fun, who was president then, what they studied in school. Do you have a great-grandfather or great aunt or older neighbor to visit? Maybe you can take a copy of Gran Torino and watch it together!
As you get more current on the timeline, do not stop! Aptitude is about understanding what is going on around you! Besides, you can start looking through current magazines and newspapers for the 1960s on. The Baby Boomers keep all of this story (including the music, the politics, and the faith) going.
Keep putting on those photos--now, you can get them from your grandparents or parents or any magazine when you reach the 1960s (hippies, anti-war movement, civil rights movement, Vietnam War); Kennedys (John, Robert, Ted), Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), Martin Luther King (MLK), assassinations, marches, space flights, female astronauts, school teacher astronaut, 9/11, Twin Towers, War in Afghanistan, War in Iraq, President Obama...Put in more current history from the sixties until now.
The 'aptitude test' has questions assuming that students are attentive members of the community, prospective voters to be. A key feature of your ongoing portfolio is to include community awareness and involvement in making things better for you and for others.
Now, would be a good time to do an oral history interview! Find a good candidate. Look over a few on line (The National Parks Service Oral History Project with the Tuskegee Airmen is full of animated conversation.) Write down some questions, and make sure your recording equipment is well charged. Settle in and talk! (Don't forget to turn the recorder on and to keep plenty of recording space!)
There is an issue of Time Magazine in January that is a good one to read over for the past year. You can buy one in a grocery store or go to the library or get information on the Internet. Keep your timeline current.
THE TIMELINE ON THE WRAPPING PAPER can be your entire study guide for your U.S. History part of the SAT. The social studies will include some charts and graphs. Know how to read the charts and graphs in every part of the test. You can pick up points this way. To learn how to read charts and graphs, use your textbooks and other books in the library to find illustrations and 'read' them.
Make your own charts.
Use data to make charts.
The social studies part of any standardized test is the part to study with a timeline and visual aids. This is the part of the test that the questions will yield some information to help you to answer the questions; but sometimes you will either know the answer or not. This is different from other parts of the test. From the literary passages and in the mathematics section, you can figure out answers because the answers are included within the passages or within the word problems. This is not true in the history section unless the answer is in the map or chart provided.
You may want to look in a bookstore or in a school supply store for additions to your wall time line.
Vivid wall illustrations will come to life in your mind later
Pay attention to the children's workbooks in Target stores, in Walmart, and in bookstores. I have placemats with the United States on one side marked with all the state capitals and on the other side with the state flags and the dates each state entered the Union. They were cheap enough to cut out and to buy duplicates. Buy some materials, if necessary. This timeline is a strong educational tool. Others in your family can use it, too. Be sure to use as much wall space as possible. Chrono is the root word for 'time.' Think of other words with this root.
Unroll more paper to make Word Walls. Word Walls are dynamic ways to learn words. Every teacher is strongly urged to use them and to change them often in the classroom. Words should be all over the place.
The following is are some entries to put in the early part of the time line beginning with George Washington, but there should be some entries about the Native Americans even earlier:
George Washington was President of the United States from April 30, 1789 until March 4, 1797. He represented the state of Virginia. His Political Party was: Federalist; and his Vice President was John Adams.
Move way over on the time line because you should have many other entries about other historical events before these 'Presidential' notes.
Grover Cleveland is the only president to be elected to two non-consecutive terms. (He was the 22nd & the 24th President.)
Leave more time line space for other historical and literary entries.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president seen on television. (He was the 32nd President. He served as President from 1933-1945. He did serve more than one term, but (unlike Grover Cleveland), FDR's terms were consecutive (one right after the other). FDR died while he was President of the USA. He was followed in office by Harry S. Truman, the vice-president. FDR had three vice presidents during his term as president: John Garner, Henry Wallace, and Harry Truman.
Words and terms to post with notes and art: tariff, Constitution, Bill of Rights, emancipation, suffrage
Be sure to put terms and words near the points in history when they are noted on the time line.
You can make word art in different ways, but one effective teaching method is to make a graph of the word with the correct spelling of the word in the first slot, a short definition (even if there are many), in the next box, an image related to the word in the next box, and a quotation or sentence using the word in the next slot. This is a graph of a word. Judieth&Rocketcat c. Feb 2010
